Doll Face
by PhantasyPhan13
Summary: Sally Finklestein was a murderous outlaw whom nobody had ever tangled with and lived to tell the tale. She was the terror of Nightmare Country, and there wasn't a single town that didn't have her face painted on 'Wanted' posters from north to south. Sally's proud of her dirty life and would never change it...until she meets Jack Skellington and her life turns upside down.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story is a PhantasyFrog collab (PhantasyPhan13 and GlitterFrog). This story is also an AU where Halloween Town is a little Western town and Sally is an outlaw who's killed thousands of people with her shotgun over the course of her life. But all that may just change when she meets a clueless skeleton in a saloon one day...anyway, please read, review, and enjoy! ^^-PhantasyPhan13**

* * *

Doll Face

Chapter One

They called her Doll Face and Shifty-Eyed Sal, but her real name was Sally Finklestein. Or at least it used to be before the day that she'd killed her first victim and begun her notorious life of crime.

People said that she'd murdered old Finklestein, her creator, by slipping some deadly nightshade into his tea. That wasn't entirely the truth-she'd just used a pinch to knock him out while she pressed the gun to his neck and pulled the trigger to let the bullet burrow deep into his throat. When the blood started dripping, she knew that she'd hit her target right. A low moan escaping from Finklestein's mouth had startled her, but another shot to the gullet had shut him up. When she was certain that he was dead and gone, she'd packed up her sewing basket, climbed out the window, and escaped into the night. No longer would she be tormented by Finklestein's overprotectiveness-she was a free woman, now and forever, and nobody could ever take that away from her.

The only problem was that after leaving her life of misery behind, she'd discovered that she just couldn't suppress that homicidal urge inside of her. She wanted to kill others and get the same rush that she'd gotten from murdering old Finklestein. She'd gotten her best chance to do so when a sneering old gentleman had found her sleeping in an alleyway the morning of her first day away from Finklestein and directed some incredibly rude and sexist remarks towards her, even going to so far as to kick her in the behind and wake her from her slumber. Well, that old gentleman hadn't lasted too long once Sally had used her shotgun on him. She'd triumphantly stepped over the body and continued on her merry way, swinging her sewing basket happily as she strolled along. Her career was off to a good start, and if all her victims were as easy to kill as Finklestein and the old gentleman, she'd have her name whispered fearfully throughout all the towns in Nightmare Country in no time.

Sally pushed her thoughts aside as she walked into the Deadly Nightshade, the saloon that had been set up inside Finklestein's old home after his death. It was famed throughout Nightmare Country for its excellent beer and the shady thugs who often came for a drink and a brawl on Saturday nights. Since it was so easy for Sally to hide amongst the other thieves and murderers who visited, she often came down for a drink when her morale was low and she needed a good mug of ale to warm her up for the long days of riding from town to town and shooting the people who lived in them.

Tonight happened to be such a night. Ever since the stupid sheriff of Halloween Town, the town where the Deadly Nightshade was set up in, had started posting 'Wanted' posters with her face smeared all over them around Halloween Town, she'd had to keep a particularly low profile. The sheriff had even managed to convince a few neighboring towns to put up posters, and now there wasn't a single person who didn't know Sally's name and desire her head for the large cash reward given upon her capture. But nobody was going to catch her very easily, if Sally had her way. Over the many years since she'd started her felonious career, she'd learned all the tricks to lead clueless sheriffs astray and evade the notice of the citizens of every town. One dumb sheriff wasn't enough to stop her from killing thousands of other people during her life. All she had to do was stay out of the sheriff's radar and everything would be gung-ho.

"Welcome to the Deadly Nightshade. How may I help you?" drawled the barkeep, a raven-like bird with a sharp beak and a dashing bowler hat.

"I'd like a drink, please," Sally replied, pulling up the collar of her scruffy black coat to shield her face. She didn't want the barkeep to recognize her in case she wanted to report Sally to the dadgummed sheriff for the $1,000 cash reward.

"Sure thing, sugar. What's your poison?" the barkeep inquired, propping herself up on her feathery elbows.

"One mug of Finklestein's Deadly Nightshade Ale," Sally barked. The barkeep nodded and filled up a glass before sending it sliding down the long, scratched surface of the bar. Sally caught it easily and glugged it down in one gulp, much to the surprise of the other patrons at the bar and the barkeep. Smiling with satisfaction, Sally pounded the bar with her fist, and the barkeep timidly sent another glass of ale her way. The second glass was followed by a third and a fourth, both gulped down with the same vigor. Sally certainly knew how to keep her ale down, and she definitely wasn't one to shy away from showing off this incredible ability. She wanted everyone to know how tough she was. Just because she was a woman didn't mean she had to spend her days weeping and prancing about in pretty skirts, after all.

Just as she had downed her fifth glass of ale, she heard a silky male voice exclaim, "A doll who can hold down five glasses of Finklestein's Deadly Nightshade Ale? Fantastic!"

Sally whipped around in surprise and saw a gentlemanly skeleton in a dapper hat sitting a seat away from her at the bar. He had one leg crossed over the other and was wearing a well-made suit made of black velvet. He was staring at her in admiration with glowing dark sockets, as if she'd just dared to wrangle with an ornery calf. "How do you do that? I've always wanted to be able to hold down that ale like you can, except I always conk out when I get to the third glass," he asked eagerly, grinning and showing what remained of his disgusting yellow teeth.

Sally frowned and lowered her eyebrows. "I don't think you want to know that, sweetheart," she growled, reaching into her pocket and fingering her gun. It looked like she'd just found another hapless victim to shoot down in this musty old bar after all.

The stranger tilted his skull. "Of course I do." His grin grew, and his eye sockets seemed to warm, "I just asked you, didn't I?"

For a moment, the outlaw only stared. "Are you funning with me?"

The stranger shook his skull, seeming genuinely confused by the question. "Not at all, madam."

At that, Sally couldn't hold back a snort. Madam? She felt like a wrinkled old granny leathering out under the sun in a faded wicker rocking chair. "You aren't FROM around here, are you, stranger?"

The skeleton plopped down onto the stool next to hers as if they were old friends, bones clicking as they made contact with the wood. "I just arrived on the train, ma'am."

Sally cringed. "Enough with the flowery formalities. It's Sal."

"'Sal'? Is that short for Sall-?"

The rag doll snatched his collar and drew him so close to her face that he see the shimmer that the ice cubes had left on her lip. "Just Sal." she hissed, her tiny cloth fingers tightening around her gun.

"Oh." The suddenness of her ferocity left him silent, but not for long. "Alright. Sal it is."

The barkeep came just close enough for the skeleton to hear her over the bawdy conversation and click of pool balls in the bar, keeping a beak's length between herself and the stitched-up spitfire. "Anything I can get for you, Mister?"

The skeleton turned to her with a smile. To Sally's amazement, the fruitcake actually TIPPED HIS HAT to the barkeep. "I am rather parched from the trip down here. A glass of Finklestein's Deadly Nightshade Ale would hit the spot." Then, before Sally could gesture towards her empty glass, he added, "And one for the lady."

Involuntarily, her jaw dropped. The barkeep's enormous brown eyes grew even wider in disbelief. Glancing at the stranger with one part shock and two parts fear for him, the black-feathered creature stammered, "Whatever you say, sugar." and beat a hasty retreat.

The redheaded outlaw stared at the skeleton. "Sweetheart, have you got a death wish?"

Much to her annoyance, he smiled amiably back at her as if she'd just asked him about the postcards down at the trading post. "Not really. Then I'd be double dead, you see."

Once again she could only stare at him. All she could say to that was, "You're a piece of work."

He dipped his skull to her. Then he jolted as if he'd been bitten by a horsefly and smacked his forehead. "Where ARE my manners?" Chuckling, he extended five long white finger bones to her. "Jack Skellington. Please, call me Jack."

Sally nodded once, wishing very much that he would go sit somewhere else. This was her ONE quiet time of the day. With reluctance, she took the ends of three of his fingers and roughly shook them. The ale flipped over in her stomach with a suddenness that sent heat creeping up her scarred neck. For one panicked second, she thought she was going to get sick. No, that was ridiculous. She hadn't had seven glasses yet. Jack's lack-of-lips puckered and lowered towards her hand. The tough doll jerked her hand back fast as a striking rattlesnake. The barkeep set down the latest glass of ale, and Sally was glad to tilt back the cold drink. Her stomach settled down again, and a bit of the foreign heat left her neck.

Jack's city boots squeaked as he crossed his ankles, sending his spidery legs out at impossible angles that somehow didn't send him tumbling right off the bench. He watched her finish off her ale with undisguised admiration over the rim of his own glass. Sally noted with some amusement that he twitched at the initial burn of the ale and put the glass down after only a few sips. "Whoo, that's strong."

Her bloodred lips twitched upwards at one corner. "I drink this stuff to unwind."

"Fantastic!" he exclaimed again.

Embarrassed but slightly proud, Sally flipped a section of her long, untamed blazing hair behind one bluish ear. For the first time since this twit had sat down, her hand left her gun. It stayed on her leg, of course, ready to dart in and grab it in an instant if need be. "You're easily amused."

He smiled as if she'd said something delightful. "Well, you're impressive."

She suppressed a grin, trying to imagine the look on his bony face if he saw her punching a hole through a silver dollar tossed into the air or blowing the head off a diamondback rattler from the back of a running stallion. "Word to the wise: watch who you try to charm around these parts."

"I'll keep that in mind," he replied breezily, not glancing at the Wanted poster tacked onto the wall not fifteen feet away from his glass. "Now just how DO you handle your alcohol so marvelously?"

Sally was about to come back with something about a trade secret when she noticed the barkeep's big bright eyes sliding over to the poster. It was time to get moving. Turning up her collar once more, Sally slapped a tip onto the counter. As she was reaching into her pocket to cover the rest, Jack shook his skull. "Please, allow me."

His sexism beginning to wear on her nerves, the rag doll fixed him with the full brunt of her dark, world-weary eyes. "And what makes you think I want you to take up my tab, Bone Man?"

He held up three of her tiny fingers, which up until a minute or two ago had been attempting to lighten his wallet. The outlaw felt an odd twinge in her chest, which she might have called guilt had she not known better. She snatched back her fingers and pushed enough payment onto the counter to cover his drink too, sliding off her stool as gracefully as her stitched limbs would allow. "Forget it."

She felt the eyes of the other denizens of the bar through the haze of smoke and body heat. Mutters underlaid the boozy conversation. Jack got up. "Oh, well- will I see you around town?"

Sally smirked without humor. "Not a chance, sweet cheekbones."

The click of a .22 stopped her in mid-step. "Step behind the bar, sugar." the barkeep murmured, keeping her voice low to keep the excitement in her establishment to a minimum.

Jack's eye sockets flew open even wider. "Now hold on just a-"

He'd scarcely got out 'Now' when Sally's hand flicked into her pocket. By just, the muzzle of her gun was level with the barkeep. The redhead made a split-second decision, considering how well the creature kept this place and the excellent drinks that she mixed. The muzzle pointed down and spat fire.

"KAAH!" The barkeep's shot went wild, burying itself in one of the walls and sending chips of plaster flying. She bobbed below the counter, groaning and clutching one leg.

By now there was a great deal of excitement in the Deadly Nightshade. Sally exchanged fire with several shouting patrons, a few of which had the glint of recognition in their greed-glazed eyes. To Sally's amazement, Jack didn't get under a table. Once he'd determined that the barkeep wasn't seriously hurt, the infernal airhead actually got one arm in front of her and shouted to the others in the bar. "Gentlemen! What's this all about?"

"Are you crazy?" Sally snapped.

"They're trying to shoot you!"

"I noticed!" she barked, shoving him to one side with her narrow hip just in time for a bullet to miss his skull by a quarter-inch.

He wasn't even trying to shoot back! Sally wondered if he even had a gun and doubted it. The drum of hooves made the front windows hum. The outlaw swore in a most unladylike fashion as the Sheriff's enormous hat cast a shadow across the front porch.

She snatched Jack's arm bone. "Move your tailbone!"

"Oh!" He was so startled that she had to drag him around the counter. Once he caught sight of the back door, though, he got the idea. The dapper skeleton sprinted out of the line of fire, shielding her body with his. This was most annoying, as it limited her aim. Every one of the shots that she DID manage to send off found their mark.

Smiling grimly, Sally raced outside. Soon both pairs of their feet were churning up clouds of dust. Sally ran to a tethered mare snoozing in the moonlight and clambered onto her back with an ease that any proper lady would have gasped at. The chestnut mare snorted and shook her head as Sally snapped her tether and jerked on the reins. "H'yah!"

The mare snorted and wheeled around. Jack stared, looking more than a bit stunned by all that had just transpired.

"There they are!"

"Criminy, she's got an accomplice!"

What? Sally's eyes widened. Jack turned partway around, as if to ask if they meant him. Gritting her teeth, Sally snatched his arm once more and pulled him up beside her. "Don't just STAND there!"

"Oop!"

The outlaw gave the mare a boot in the side. The chestnut animal snorted and took off at a canter. Bullets sprayed dust on either side of them but didn't come too close for comfort. The mare shrieked and Sally squeezed the reins. "Easy!"

"Ack!" Jack clung to her waist as he bounced in the saddle, clicking like a wind chime in a twister.

"Squeeze her sides with your legs!" Sally barked, wondering if this skeleton had NO survival instincts.

"Oh!" Judging from the decrease in clicking, he obeyed.

Sally kicked the mare again, spurring her to a gallop, and pointed her towards the south.

* * *

"W-where are we going?" Jack stammered, gripping Sally's waist as though his life depended on it.

Sally rolled her eyes. How clueless could this idiot be? "You just wait and see, sweet cheekbones," she snapped. She flicked the reins and dug her heels more deeply into the chestnut mare's side, causing the animal to give out a shriek and speed up even more, as though her life depended on it.

"Oh, okay," Jack shrugged. He moaned and clung to Sally's waist even tighter. "Is it close? Because that Deadly Nightshade Ale isn't doing anything for my stomach here..."

Fed up with Jack's annoying behavior, Sally turned right around in the saddle and slapped him across the face. "Shut up! If you throw up, you'll give us away!" she hissed. Jack blinked with surprise and rubbed the slap mark on his face, but he settled down and kept his mouth closed for the rest of the trip.

As they rode, Sally tried to ignore the strange feeling building up in her stomach. She couldn't tell what it was, but she didn't like it one bit. It made her stomach churn and her neck feel hot again. She knew it couldn't possibly be guilt, as she'd done far worse things to her victims without regret. It certainly wasn't the ale-she'd glugged down far more than what she'd had today in the bar and ridden for miles with no effects whatsoever. And she was definitely not in love with this sexist idiot of a skeleton. So what was that feeling, then? Perhaps it was anxiety over the thought of almost being captured. Still, she couldn't afford to be affected by her emotions, so she shoved them aside for the moment and shielded her eyes as she kept an eye on the horizon for the hideout she and her gang stayed in between raids on unsuspecting towns.

After two more hours, the looming lair popped up on the horizon like a rattlesnake slithering out of its hole. "We're here. Keep your mouth shut and do as I say if you want to remain alive," Sally barked as she pulled on the reins, slowing the chestnut mare to a fast trot.

Jack made a feeble gurgling noise in reply and hiccuped so loudly that Sally could smell the ale on his breath. "Excuse me," he muttered, quickly clapping a hand over his mouth as more hiccups shook his skinny body. Sally groaned again and shook her head. Hoping that the gentlemanly skeleton wouldn't vomit on the back of her horse, she pulled the brim of her pitch-black hat down as far as she could and pulled up the collar of her coat so high that it almost covered her nose. At least this way, if Jack did get sick, she wouldn't get any of the vomit in her hair or on any part of her body.

As the chestnut mare slowed to a halt in front of the hideout, the Hanging Tree, Sally's best friend, sauntered out in front of the entrance and blinked with surprise when he saw Jack groaning behind her in the saddle. "What's this feller doing here? He ain't in league with the sheriff, is he?" growled the Hanging Tree as he walked up to Sally's mare and took the reins to lead the mare into the hideout.

Sally slapped her forehead in frustration. "No, this idiot wound up sitting next to me in the Deadly Nightshade and I had to take him with me after a shootout in the bar. I'll tell you more as soon as I put away Sutures," she explained reluctantly.

The Hanging Tree smirked but did not comment. He yanked on the reins, causing the mare to stop abruptly. Sally leapt out of the saddle and gracefully landed on both feet. She smiled and brushed herself off as she unsaddled Sutures and tied her up inside of her stall in the hideout. Sally wanted to remove Sutures' reins and brush her down, but she had to check on Jack to make sure the jerk hadn't escaped already. She couldn't afford to have a moron like him blabbing about the location of this place. If he did, she'd be captured and dead within a week, and it wouldn't be too long before the other members of her gang fell prey to the same fate.

Sally trotted down the hall eagerly and almost tripped over a body lying in the corridor. "Didn't I tell them not to leave the bodies of our victims lying around this place? Those corpses could be used as evidence against us if somebody ever found them!" she snorted as she got to her feet, dusting off her coat as she stood. As she got a better view of the body, she realized with amusement that the person that she'd tripped over was Jack. The blundering skeleton was lying flat on his back with his eyes closed. His grimy mouth hung open, emitting the sickening scent of ale. His beautiful suit had been torn when he'd fell and his gorgeous stetson was now as flat as a pancake. If Sally hadn't seen Jack's body in her hideout and knew how he'd gotten there, she would have thought he'd had one drink too many at a bar and gotten trampled by an inebriated crowd.

"Got Sutures put away?" the Hanging Tree inquired as he ambled over to Sally's side.

"Yes, but unfortunately I'm afraid our victim is down for the count," Sally smirked, pointing down at Jack's unconscious body.

The Hanging Tree snickered as soon as he got a good view of the pathetic skeleton. "Guess he couldn't handle a horse on alcohol, eh?" he chuckled.

Sally joined in his laughter for a brief time, but stopped as a vital thought crossed her mind. "But what are we supposed to do about him? We can't just leave him lying on the floor like this! If he comes to and escapes, he'll tell everybody about our hideout and we'll be arrested before we can put our trigger fingers on our guns!" she hissed.

The Hanging Tree shrugged in response. "I s'pose we could just tie him up and toss him in a closet somewhere. When the time is right, we'll give him a good barrage of bullets to the ribs and he won't be a problem anymore," he suggested.

Sally nodded in approval. "That's probably the best thing we can do right now." Grabbing Jack under the armpits, she began to drag him towards the tiny closet where she and her gang stored their guns and torture weapons. It would be the perfect place to keep a potential victim until he revived. Of course, they could kill him while he was sleeping, but what fun was killing a victim when they couldn't cry out for mercy? Sally grinned maliciously at the thought as she and the Hanging Tree proceeded to tie up the dozing skeleton. When they were finished, they locked the door tightly behind them and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, this'll be the most fun we've had for a while," drawled the Hanging Tree, snapping his bark-like teeth together in glee. The skeletons hanging in his branches clapped and cheered in support.

"Yeah, it sure as shootin' will be," Sally smiled wickedly. Maybe taking this annoying skeleton along with her wasn't such a bad idea after all. The terror in his eyes when she ended his life would be absolutely priceless. Besides, killing idiots was always more fun than killing stone-faced victims in cahoots with the sheriff, anyway.

...

Jack woke up in darkness. For a little bit, all he knew was the pounding in his skull and the awful taste on his tongue. But it didn't take long for curiosity to edge out the nausea. He sat up carefully and squinted, looking around him from all angles. As his sockets adjusted to the gloom, the dapper skeleton made out a thin stripe of light just ahead of his feet. Ah! A door. Jack reached out to feel for a knob and encountered a small problem. Frowning, he tried again. Sure enough, both of his arms were bound firmly to his sides.

"Hmm."

Something was poking him from behind, and he smelled something metallic in the close air: gunpowder, if he had to hazard a guess. This Sal was just full of surprises. Jack tried to move his legs and encountered similar difficulty. His bony forehead wrinkled as he sat back and attempted to get his feet up. There! He brought both feet against the wood and knocked rhythmically.

Sally stroked the curry comb along Sutures' neck, satisfied that the mare's coat was nearly restored to its gleaming glory. The animal was relaxed from her rubdown and had stopped panting after her third bucket of water. Sally stroked her mare's shoulder. Fed up as she was with people, men specifically, critters were alright. "Attagirl."

"Sal!" Pudgy feet slapped against the floor and squeaked to a stop. The arrival waited until she reluctantly turned around.

"What?"

Corpse the Kid stood breathless at the door to Sutures' stall. "The varmint in the closet is awake!"

The outlaw stifled a groan. "Threaten him a little and tell him you'll snap his sternum if he makes trouble."

"I did." the youngest gang member replied.

"And?" Sally replied, bored, beginning to return to Sutures' neck.

"He wants to talk to you."

The comb stopped. She stared at the kid to see if he was serious. He was. Sally blew out a breath that sent a piece of her hair fluttering to attention. It was official: there was something scrambled up in that skeleton's skull.

"Well, that's just too bad." She was not a puppy that this stranger could call whenever he wanted. "Any sign of our pursuers?"

Corpse the Kid shook his gray head. "They went back to town."

"Well, we were going awfully fast."

Both Sally and the kid whirled around. Jack stood in the stall's doorway, leaning slightly against one side of the doorframe. He looked a little green around the gills and more than a bit dusty but none  
the worse for his unexpected adventure.

His sockets widened as he stared down the barrel of Sally's gun. "Put 'em up." the rag doll snarled, "Or you'll be nothing but a bunch of fragments and a memory."

He raised his hands slowly, looking genuinely shocked. "Alright...alright."

"I heard you the first time, sweetheart."

His jaw clicked shut. Sally circled him, taking her time. Nobody had ever gotten out of the Tree's knots before, and she was not about to show him that this unnerved her.

Jack's sockets followed her the whole way. The goober actually looked HURT. Not looking directly into his face, Sally muttered, "You're not getting out of here single-dead."

He didn't panic or beg or offer money (the last of which he doubtlessly had gobs of). The skeleton only asked, "Why?" so softly that the Kid had to lean in to catch his words.

The outlaw felt a strong pinch in her chest. Heartburn. She hadn't ridden so soon after drinking in a while. "Your luck ran out, Bone Man. I told you to be careful around here."

Jack's sockets were caught by the flutter of a Wanted poster that a gang member with a sense of humor had tacked up nearby. He stared at her again.

"Yeah, sweetheart. I'm one of the bad guys your momma warned you about."

She could see him fitting the pieces together in his mind: her roughness, the shootout, their abrupt exodus from The Deadly Nightshade... "What is it that you want from me?"

Sally barked out an acerbic laugh. "Do I have to spell it out for you? Your time is UP. What I WANT is to fill you full of buckshot."

The hurt in his sockets grew. Again, in a whisper, he asked, "...Why?"

"Why? Because that's what I DO."

The lack of terror in his sockets was getting to her more than she'd thought possible. The way he gazed right at her, the corners of his not-lips turned down and his sockets soft with pain, not only sucked the fun out of what she was about to do but squeezed her with a nausea that she hadn't felt since her very first bullet had punched into the Doctor.

"Lock him up in one of the stalls," she muttered, "No use hampering anyone when they want to get at fresh bullets."

The kid nodded and obediently grabbed Jack's arm.

"You don't need to do that," Jack told him, "I'll go."

Sally pointed to a nearby stall with the muzzle of her gun. "No funny business. You get the urge to go for a stroll again, I'll blow your skull off."

Jack nodded twice and tottered inside, obviously not back to 100% yet. The corpse boy barred the door with a riding crop. He looked after Sally in confusion as she stalked from the room, hoping that she wouldn't lose six ales on the floor.

Jack listened as her tiny footsteps receded. A small snuffle caught his attention. He turned to see a little dog poke his snout out of the hay and poke at his arm with a black nose. The skeleton clicked at the dog with his tongue and offered his hand for the creature to sniff. It did so happily, then snorted and pushed its way under his arm. Jack sighed as the dog laid its head in his lap, petting its ears and back and trying not to think too hard about anything in particular just at the moment.

...

The barkeep's leg, cocooned in bandages, was propped up on the pool table. The Sheriff hovered over her, his anxious face twisted with worry. "Is it bleeding any more, Miss Eve?"

"It's fine, Mr. Sheriff," she squawked, "Now settle down. You're gonna give yourself a new crop of ulcers."

Satisfied that the feathered creature was, for the moment, not in need of further (borderline obsessive) attention, the Sheriff whirled on the grim townspeople that were assembled in The Deadly Nightshade. "Shifty-Eyed Sal has gone too far!"

"She gunned down my cousin," growled a vampire, "I'll make her into a quilt!"

"I'll hang it up over the counter." muttered the barkeep, which briefly made the Sheriff's smiling face appear (as it did whenever she said something even marginally amusing).

"No one's ever tangled with her and lived to tell about it." snarled a werewolf.

"We'd be taking on a whole gang." muttered a tall witch.

A short witch flung a hand over her eyes and wailed, "Oh, when will all this wickedness END?"

A slow, deliberate clearing of a throat got a few heads to turn. A few heads became several, and with a few whispers and jerking fingers, the entire bar fell into a hush.

An enormous, grotesque shadow made a blotch against the wall. Three pairs of gleaming eyes winked at the shadow's side. Dice clicked in a burlap paw and turned up snake-eyes on the nearest table.

"Don't you worry about that doll," rumbled a voice that gave even the werewolf shivers.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: The lyrics in this chapter are from the song 'California Rose', which neither of us owns.-PhantasyPhan13 and GlitterFrog**

* * *

Chapter Two

The Sheriff was the first one to address the looming stranger. "W-who are you?" he stammered, placing an arm protectively around Miss Eve's feathery shoulders. The raven-like barkeep snorted and shoved the Sheriff off her with a flicker of her wings, causing the roly-poly two-faced man to fall backwards onto his rump with a thud.

The shadowy figure twisted its cracked potato-sack lips into a fearsome smile. "I'm Mr. Oogie Boogie, and these are my three henchmen-Lock, Shock, and Barrel," he replied, pointing to each of the three ghastly children as he spoke their names. Lock, Shock, and Barrel snickered devilishly in reply. The townsfolk in the bar looked at each other with suspicion flickering in their eyes. They'd heard rumors of a ruthless gambler named Oogie Boogie and the three demon children, Lock, Shock, and Barrel, and those rumors weren't anything close to pleasant. Still, if Mr. Oogie Boogie was their only chance of hunting down Shifty-Eyed Sal, then they might just have to accept his help for the sake of their town.

"N-nice to meet you, M-Mr. Boogie Oogie," the Sheriff stammered as he stumbled to his feet and rubbed the sore spot on his behind.

"That's Mr. OOGIE BOOGIE to YOU," snarled Oogie Boogie as he grabbed the Sheriff by the collar and forced the poor two-faced man to look him in his hollow empty eyes. "You gotta show a little RESPECT if you want my help in tracking down Doll Face here!"

The werewolf growled in warning, and the witches gave out a fearful shriek. Oogie Boogie's eyes glowed with malice as he stared at the townsfolk gathered in the bar. "That's ENOUGH, now!" he thundered. As if by magic, all the townsfolk quieted down and slunk back to their dark corners in the bar.

Oogie plonked the Sheriff down into a chair, which he promptly scooted behind Eve's bristling wings. The gambler smirked as he surveyed the wary faces. "Much better."

He waddled a few steps forward and retrieved his dice. The three children stayed where they were but looked ready for anything if the sack-man gave the word.

"I'll take care of your doll," the gambler drawled, "For a price."

"Anything," the Sheriff gibbered.

Eve stared. "You don't want to NEGOTIATE that first?"

Oogie smirked and ran his paw under her chin. She bared sharp teeth and warned him off with her crutch. The Mayor looked like he'd just swallowed a bowie knife.

"I'm not askin' for much for now," Oogie addressed the bar, "Just room, board, and all the bugs I can eat." He smirked. "It'd also be in your best interests to have a LOT of candy on hand."

Snickers emanated from the shadows. The witches shivered and huddled closer together.

"And what do you want in reward for tracking down Shifty-Eyed Sal?" the Sheriff quavered.

Oogie's brownish lips turned upwards at the corners.

"All I want is to become Sheriff of this charming town. That ain't too much to ask for, is it?" Oogie snarled.

"And can we be his deputies?" Barrel squealed delightedly, waving his lollipop with glee. He accidentally let go of it, causing it to fly across the room and hit the vampire in the face. "Oops."

Shock slapped her forehead in annoyance. "Barrel, you're so stupid!" she complained.

"No, I'm not!" Barrel stuck out his tongue. He crawled across the floor to retrieve his lollipop and accidentally slipped in a puddle of spilled ale. He slid across the room, knocking over several patrons of the bar in the process, and banged into the wall so hard that three paintings fell to the floor and cracked their frames.

"BARREL!" Lock complained as he helped the dazed skeleton child to his feet and helped him balance.

"Well, it wasn't MY fault! I didn't slip on purpose!" Barrel retorted.

"Oh yes you did!" snarled Lock as he leapt on top of Barrel and pinned him to the floor. Barrel bit Lock's hand in retaliation, and a full-fledged brawl broke out between the two demonic youngsters. Apparently forgetting about Oogie's demand, the patrons of the saloon crowded around to watch Lock and Barrel fight, cheering them on as if they were two raging bulls. Meanwhile, Shock stood in a corner and shook her head, muttering to herself over why she had chosen to be a member of the group of these two delinquents in the first place.

"SILENCE!" Oogie rumbled. Lock and Barrel immediately shut up and slunk subserviently over to their master with Shock joining them. "That's much better," Oogie nodded.

Silence once again sunk in. Nobody seemed overly eager to take Oogie up on his offer. The Sheriff muttered, not a little shaken, "Sheriff? But that position is taken."

Oogie stared down at him. "Is that going to be a problem?"

A few of the townspeople were a bit bothered. Others muttered that a sheriff who let ne'er-do-wells like Shifty-Eyed Sal run wild wasn't much of a sheriff at all. There were murmurs of assent. Barrel grinned around the handful of ice that he had pressed to his battered face.

The Sheriff didn't look the bully in the eye. After a long, tense moment where you could've heard a horsefly buzzing, the portly law enforcer mumbled, "...No."

Oogie's grin grew darker. "Excellent." Picking up his dice, he leered evilly out at the townspeople and tossed the dice in his paw. "Is anyone up for a little gamblin'? I'm feelin' rather hungry tonight."

Miss Eve cocked her head to the side doubtfully. "You gonna play fair, mister?" she squawked.

Oogie Boogie's laugh shook the saloon with its intensity. "You oughta know by now that a boogeyman NEVER plays fair, sweet honey feathers!" Oogie smirked, running his paw in a mock-loving manner down her beak.

Miss Eve slapped Oogie's paw away from her face and retreated further behind the bar. "You ain't gonna get nowhere with that, Mr. Oogie Boogie," Eve retorted sassily. "And in that case, I suppose I'll just find something else to do while everyone else joins you in a round of poker."

"Poker? That's an even better idea than dice! How about it?" Oogie beamed as he addressed the townspeople.

The Sheriff nodded eagerly. "Why not? I love poker! C'mon, let's get started!" the Sheriff giggled gleefully.

Oogie smiled sinisterly as he laid the cards out on the table. "If you wish, Mr. Sheriff. Just be prepared to feel a little lighter by the time the night is over," he grinned. Looks like he'd be able to line his pocket with a little cash and get a free bed and bug breakfast tonight. Not a bad deal for a shifty gambler who made a living from bribing and tricking people out of their money in every town he came across.

* * *

Without much else to do, Jack began talking to Sutures and the little dog. "So there I was, just dropping in for a drink and a week's vacation, and suddenly I'm in the middle of a firestorm."

Sutures flicked her ears as if to say that she'd seen worse; the dog wagged its tail, encouraging him to go on.

The skeleton sighed. "And now I'm being held hostage in a stable by an outlaw that would just as soon shoot me as look at me." His brow wrinkled. "Not to mention that my hat's as flat as a pancake."

Sutures snorted, much like her mistress would have. The dog tugged at the top of the hat, doing what it could to restore the stetson. Jack grinned a yellow-toothed grin and rumpled the dog's ears. "It's the thought that counts, boy."

"If you care so much about your dear stetson, you may as well take it off before I shoot you so it doesn't get damaged in the line of fire," Sally's voice cut through the air like the hiss of a rattlesnake. She appeared at the door with the muzzle of her gun pointed at Jack's skull, scowling like a thunderstorm. "Get that stupid animal out of the way. I don't want to hit him instead of you by accident."

Jack shrugged. "All right, if you say so." He rose to his feet and shoved the ghost dog aside before gently nudging Sutures out of the way so she wouldn't be hit. He turned to face Sally and attempted to plaster a stoic look on his ghastly face, but the closest thing he could get was an expression of mild pain.

"Okay, Bone Man. Put your arms up and let me know if you have any last requests," Sally snarled as she prepared to shoot.

Jack did as she said and seriously considered his death wish for a while. It was at least five minutes before he spoke up. "Perhaps a nice stetson to replace the one I damaged when I fell off your fine horse," he suggested.

Sally's smile was so bitter that it could have gagged a scorpion. "Ain't happenin', sweetheart," she smirked.

"Oh, well. Could I sing one last song before I die, then? I used to be an actor in musicals back home, you see," Jack asked.

Sally rolled her eyes. An actor for muscials? That skeleton was softer than she had ever imagined. "What the hell, go ahead. It ain't gonna stop me from pumping you full of lead," she growled in consent.

Jack smiled, tipped what remained of his hat to her, and opened his mouth to sing. To Sally's great surprise, the dadgummed skeleton actually had a decent singing voice. What was more, she seriously stopped to listen...and found that her trigger finger had frozen on her.

He was singing a love song.

"California rose, I see the light of love upon your face. California rose, I live to share the warmth of your embrace."

His sockets were closed, as though he was picturing a lover before him, his fingerbones crooked gently inwards as if he were caressing long, soft hair.

"Hands that caress me, so soft to the touch."

His hands curled towards his chest, holding his hat to him. His skull tilted upwards just slightly.

"Lips that possess me, and promise so much."

The lanky skeleton was the picture of calm. A smile graced his not-lips.

"Near and far away they know about the rose that's in your hair. Lonely lovers say they'd give the world if only you would care."

He tipped his skull towards the ceiling, his deep, rich voice crescendoing.

"But darling, you're mine, and my love I'll always share, forever more."

His voice dropped again and became as gentle as a breeze whispering through a tumbleweed.

"My California rose. California rose...I love you...so."

Sally's tongue felt like a dried-up creek bed. That foreign warmth had taken full possession of every inch of her neck and head. She felt downright feverish and wondered if she might not be coming down with something. He leaned down, took one of her tiny hands into his finger bones, and gave it a kiss.

Jack closed his sockets, his not-lips lingering on her soft blue fabric, savoring her scent and warmth. He looked like he was trying to memorize her before he left the world. Her trigger finger felt like wood.

Sally's fingers twitched abruptly out of his hand and jammed itself into her pocket. "That's enough for now, mister," she snapped with a wobbling note of discomfort in her voice.

Jack smiled wistfully and respectfully renounced contact with Sally's hand. "Sorry. I was just thinking about a girl I used to love back home," he replied with a sigh of longing. He placed his stetson on his head and looked at Sally with eye sockets that would have been filled with tears if they held eyes and flesh had covered his lanky fingerbones. "Are you ready now? Go ahead and shoot me when you feel like it..."

Sally stared at Jack as though he'd announced that he'd just risen from the dead. Why was he making this so hard? She knew she had to shoot him-the members of her gang would snicker with contempt if they found out that she'd let him go because of a silly love song. But there was something about Jack's mellifluous voice and the way he'd caressed her hand that had made her pause in her tracks. It just didn't seem fair somehow to kill such a talented singer with so much passion in his heart. His song had stirred a secret place deep down inside her heart that she'd kept locked away since the day that she'd murdered Finklestein. Now that it had opened, a strange feeling had crawled into her heart and caused regret to trickle into her bones. She was beginning to suspect that it was called sympathy, or perhaps it was compassion.

Either way, she knew she'd have to shoot Bone Man darn quick before she started blubbering.

"Sorry, sweetheart, but yer time's up. Better say goodbye to your pretty lover girl before you wind up in your second grave," Sally hissed, trying unsuccessfully to keep that queer little wobble out of her voice. As Jack raised his hands over his head and started to close his eyes, he gave her one last glance before his sockets snapped shut that chilled her to the core. At once, Sally knew that Jack had realized that she was shooting him against her will. Oh, why was he turning her into a sap? Everything was perfect before he'd started singing. Now she'd be crying while she pointed the muzzle at the place where his dear heart used to be and-

Shut up, Sally, she thought to herself. No point in making this harder than it needs to be. You've killed hundreds of young men in your life like this one. What's so special about Jack? He's just like all the other young fools in Nightmare Country. Get on with it and kill him quick or you'll regret it later!

Sally closed her eyes and pressed the trigger. She could almost hear the bullet singing a song of pain as it whipped through the air. She winced as she heard the whimper of pain and the thump of the body that signaled that Jack was dead. Gulping back tears of rue, Sally opened her eyes and prepared to wince at the terrible sight of the skeleton's corpse.

But instead, a heartending sight met her black eyes. Jack was kneeling on the ground, weeping tearlessly over the body of the dog that he had been cuddling in his lap earlier. "Zero...no. Don't leave me; oh please, don't leave me..." Jack sobbed as he placed the ghost dog's head into his lap and stroked the ice-cold ears.

Her hands were shaking. She felt queasy. Sally stared down at the little white bundle in Jack's arms. She'd never meant to hit the dog. She hadn't wanted to shoot in the first place. How long was this skeleton going to keep messing with her life? Sally licked her lips and adjusted the angle of the muzzle. It was no use. She could no more shoot this skeleton who would go uncomplaining into double-death than she could dump a litter of newborn kittens into a rain barrel. Hating herself, the outlaw roughly snatched Jack's wrist bone and stalked out of the stall.

She snatched his wrist, pulling him away from Zero's little body. He staggered initially but was quick to follow, still weeping, confusion radiating from his lanky frame. She located her sewing basket and yanked out a length of fabric.

"Hold still."

He did, not asking a single question though Sally had no doubt that his skull was swimming with them. None too gently, she rolled the fabric into a bandanna and tied it around his sockets. She whistled to Sutures and lifted Jack onto her back when she obediently clopped over. After making sure that the Kid was gone and the coast was clear, Sally got up behind Jack and rode Sutures outside. Having her arms around him made that fever warmth come back again. She forced herself not to think about it. She especially refused to think that this time, she didn't mind so much.

They rode for a while under the stars, the only sounds the clumping of hooves and Jack's dry breath stirring against the scars on her arms. Sally was sure to take lots of twists and turns. At length, she brought Sutures to a stop and effortlessly hopped down. She pulled Jack of the mare's back and spun him around quite a few times. He tottered and had to cling to her arm, mumbling an apology even as he did.

The scarred-up redhead ripped the blindfold off his sockets. "Get outta here and don't ever come back. You breathe one word about me or my gang, ONE, and there's no rathole or cave that'll hide you."

Quite understandably, Jack looked a little lost. "I...but.."

"GET OUTTA HERE!"

Sutures folded her ears back. Jack raised both hands partway up, as if she still had a gun on him. "Alright, alright," he soothed.

Wondering if the idjit might just wander off and get lost, Sally jerked one thumb to the left and muttered, "There's a mining town that way."

Then, before he could utter another word, she jumped onto Sutures and plunged her boot into the mare's side. Snorting in protest, Sutures took off, leaving a trail of dust that glowed in the moonlight. Sally fisted her tiny fingers in her mare's mane as the wind whipped wetness from her eyes. She bit her lip until she drew leaves. She didn't once look back.

The Hanging Tree took Sutures and led her to the stall for a rubdown and a drink without a word. He glanced after his best friend as she grunted in acknowledgement and stalked off for her room. A few of the skeletons frowned. The Tree had seen her go, but now didn't seem at all like the time to bring it up.

A white mist wreathed from the small, bloodstained body on the hay-strewn floor. Sutures snorted and took a step back as a tiny ghost dog with a glowing nose rose into the air. The glowing nose twitched thrice as it sniffed. Then, wagging his tail, Zero took off in the direction that Sally had taken earlier.

* * *

"I'm ruined!" wailed the Sheriff.

"There's a surprise," muttered Miss Eve, shooting a dark look at a cackling Oogie as he stuffed pawful after pawful of winnings into a potato sack that Barrel held.

Half the townspeople in the bar had been cleaned out.

Most of the good ale had been drunk up for free.

There were bugs running off Oogie's plate and getting into the beans and chili.

Suffice to say that this gambler was wearing out his welcome.

"Ain't all you citizens of Halloween Town kind and obliging," Oogie drawled, stumbling somewhat from all the ale he'd consumed as he finished filling up his sack and sauntered over to the Sheriff. He let out a hearty laugh that was as dry, crackly, and unpleasant as leaves being run over by a fevered horse. "Whaddaya say for another round of poker? Got any more cash left on ya?"

The Sheriff winced as Oogie's hand slithered around his pudgy neck. The booze on Oogie's breath was strong enough to snuff out a large mouse. "Errmm, Mr. Boogie Oogie, I'm afraid that none of us has any money left after that last round of poker."

"THAT'S MR. OOGIE BOOGIE TO YOU!" Oogie roared in a drunken rage. All the citizens in the bar stepped back and glanced at one another in panic. They had no idea would Oogie would do next, but if the rumors they'd heard about him were true, then it surely couldn't be good.

Oogie smiled and parted his lips just enough for his snaky tongue to slither out and hiss a warning into the smoky air. "Got any more of that Spider's Vale Gin on ya? I could use a drink after all that thirsty work," Oogie grinned.

"We ain't got anymore. You drank it all," hissed Eve, her bird eyes shining in contempt.

Oogie's grin turned into a frown faster than you could say Doll Face. He leaned over the bar and gave Eve a furious-and highly inappropriate-whack on the bottom. "WHADDAYA MEAN, YOU AIN'T GOT NO MORE?! You gotta have more! I'll kill y'all if you don't gimme any!" Oogie thundered, like a spoiled child demanding his favorite toy.

"Sorry, sugar. That's all for tonight," Eve rebuked. Her eyes glared bloody murder as she grabbed a protesting Oogie by the paw, dragged him to the front door of the saloon, and tossed him out into the chilly night, making sure to lock the door tight behind her.

As she turned around, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Nice work, Miss Eve," the Sheriff complimented her with admiration shining in his black-and-yellow eyes.

Eve shrugged nonchalantly. "It was nothing, sugar," she replied. Her eyes gleamed as they swept over the crowd of bewildered patrons. "Don't you worry about that Oogie Boogie anymore. I got plenty of ale for all of us stored away in the floorboards," Eve explained as she leaned over and tore apart one of the wooden floorboards to reveal a cache of her best ale, wine, and beer.

Everyone cheered as they gathered around and greedily snatched at the drinks. "Easy now," Eve warned as they all crowded around to take their fill.

Eve watched the townspeople guzzling down their booze contentedly. She sat down to rest her leg and pretended not to notice when the Sheriff sat close enough for his arm to touch her foot. Chatter started up again. A few were even able to laugh. But there was a sense of tension, like a thunderstorm waiting to break, that never quite went away. This Oogie fella meant trouble, big trouble. Personally, Eve couldn't help wondering if their town was exchanging one problem for another.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Sally flopped onto a creaky chair and buried her face in her hands as tears flowed down her face. What had she done? She hadn't wanted to kill that darned skeleton or his hound. For the first time in her life, she hadn't wanted to kill anybody.

She didn't understand it. Over the many murders she'd committed during her life so far, she'd acquired a hardness that allowed her to be totally numb to the deaths of all her victims. She had even come close to killing a child once or twice, although she hadn't been successful as of yet in those sorts of morbid endeavors. She restricted her victims to unlucky adults and the occasional annoying teenager. It was easier to kill older citizens somehow-they just didn't possess the innocence of younger victims, and tough as she was, the idea of killing a little kid seemed so wrong to Sally that she'd never even considered seriously trying.

Despite all of her standards for killing, though, Jack had managed to breach her wall of world-weariness and pierece right through to her very soul. He seemed to have the innocence and lovability of the children she'd never been able to kill, and something about him made her heart stir. She couldn't explain the awkwardness and heat she felt creeping through her veins whenever she was close to him. Surely it couldn't be love, could it?

No, Shifty-Eyed Sal would rather burn herself at the stake than fall in love with a stupid stranger like Jack. It wasn't right. How could she go soft after all these years of orneriness and killings? Her gang members would laugh and abandon her, she wouldn't be able to care for Sutures, and her career would be over. It would only be a matter of time after she was left to her own devices that the Sheriff would catch her and she'd be spending the rest of her life in prison.

The thought of peeking through the bars made Sally recoil with disgust. "I don't love him," she muttered resolutely to herself. Staring at a bloodied knife on the wall, she stood up, grabbed her gun, and opened the door of the room with a slam. Stomping into the corridor, she scanned the room with her keen eyes to look for Corpse the Kid or the Hanging Tree. It was time for her to get over that darned bone man and plunge back into her life of crime. There had been a robbery heist that she'd been considering for a while now. It would be just the thing to take her mind off her foreign feelings and get back into the swing of things once again.

"Hanging Tree?" Sally hissed.

Her barky friend skittered into view at the sound of her voice. "Yes?" he snapped in reply.

Sally's smile was poisonous enough to wilt a flower. "Come here. I have the plans for our next heist," Sally whispered, gesturing for the Hanging Tree to come closer with her hand. The Tree grinned and listened eagerly as Sally dictated her plan into the place where his ear would have been. It looked like she'd be able to kiss the days of Bone Man Jack goodbye and get a rush out of feloniousness once again, if the gang listened to her and everything went according to her devious plot.

Jack staggered dazedly as he dragged his dehydrated body through the dusty desert. Ever since Sally had abandoned him in the middle of nowhere, his life had devolved into a series of endless walking, panting, and forever searching the horizon for the mining town she had mentioned. He was sure that she hadn't deceived him, but it was possible that he'd gotten lost and left the mining town far behind during the time he'd spent looking for a way to return home or at least find a means of salvation.

"What have I done? If things don't get better, I'm going to be nothing more than a pile of bones in a couple of days," Jack moaned with despair as he collapsed in a heap under a spiny cactus. Heat overtook his senses and buzzed in his skull like an annoying mosquito as he slowly began to slide into a swoon.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time he'd passed out-he'd fallen victim to numb blackness a couple of times while stumbling around in the vast emptiness of the desert. He hadn't found anything to eat or drink, and the few times he'd tried to cut open a cactus for water hand resulted in wounded hands and pride. There was nothing he could do except allow himself to deteriorate and hope that double death would come quickly.

At least I'll be able to rest, Jack mused hazily. His parched tongue became ever more apparent as his senses shut down one by one and the throbbing in his head doubled by the second. After a couple of minutes, he wasn't able to even feel his limbs anymore. It wasn't too long before his whole body became as dead as a rock.

It was only a matter of time before the end came...this time, he knew he wouldn't wake up, but he still hoped that there would be something for him in the afterlife if he truly was double dead...if only he could have returned to his girlfriend back home before he had to leave this world for good...

Sally's screaming voice woke Jack from his stupor. "Jack! Jack! Help me!" Sally screamed as the shadow of the notorious gambler Oogie Boogie loomed over her.

"I'm coming, Sally!" Jack called. He leapt to his feet and ran at Oogie Boogie with all his might. Steam shot out of his ears as he walloped the sack man in the stomach and made a grab for the thread that bound Oogie together.

"You ain't goin' nowhere, bone man!" Oogie boomed. He raised his hand and knocked Jack on his back, causing the poor skeleton to lay dazed for a few moments as he saw bats dance before his eyes.

However, Sally's shrieks of shock reminded him of his duty and snapped him back to the present. Getting to his feet, Jack slowly advanced on Oogie and looked him deep in the eyes. "Now you're really going to get it," he snarled as he lunged forward and successfully managed to capture a strand of Oogie's thread. Then, before the lecherous villain could rebuke his move, Jack yanked the thread hard enough to unravel the cloth sack holding Oogie together. The sack man collapsed into a heap of screaming bugs that scuttled out across the desert sands, calling out Jack's name in blind terror.

Jack chuckled as he turned to Sally, whose eyes were shining with relief and admiration. "Oh, Jack, I can't believe you-" Sally began, but Jack cut her off tenderly before she could speak another word.

"It was nothing, darling," he replied proudly as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. Just as he was leaning in for the big kiss, a gunshot rang out and something hard hit him in the back of the skull.

"Jack! T-they've shot you!" Sally sobbed as she held Jack's hand, watching the life bleed out of the charismatic skeleton.

"I-it'll be all right, Sally," Jack coughed. He blinked rapidly to keep her in focus, but it was no use. She was dissolving into a misty haze of beautiful patchwork pieces and bright black eyes lined by brilliant lashes. She continued to call his name and beg with him to stay with her as Jack's world faded to black and the evil laughter of Oogie Boogie's bugs filled the air.

* * *

When Jack opened his eyes, it was nighttime. "It was all...a dream?" Jack murmured woozily as he got to his feet. Just to make sure, he felt the back of his skull and sighed with relief when he realized that there was no bullet there. Still, he was a bit disappointed that he really hadn't been able to rescue Sally after all.

A faint light bobbed above a cactus. Jack stared at it, squinting through hazy sockets, wondering if this was a dehydration-induced illusion or a firefly that had gotten seriously lost.

'Either way, it certainly is pretty,' he thought to himself.

The light came closer, weaving towards him like a living thing. 'What is this?' Jack wondered.

"Arf! Arf!"

Jack stiffened. It couldn't be...

Two wide sockets stared into his own. A happy grin filled his fuzzy vision.

"Arf! Arf! Arf!"

"Zero!" Jack would have laughed and cried at the same time if he'd had any water left in his body. "I thought I'd never see you again- you old hound, you!"

The little dog's familiar tongue lapped across his heat-baked skull, and Jack closed his sockets appreciatively. When the licking stopped, Jack took a closer look at his friend. Zero was floating several feet off the ground. Where fur had once grown, only mist remained. His little black nose now glowed like a tiny pumpkin. He no longer appeared to have any paws or legs...or bones, for that matter.

Jack felt a pinch of sorrow. "Oh," he breathed, "So now we're in the same boat: single-dead.."

Zero tipped his head and snorted, as if to say, 'It doesn't bother me. Not now that I've found you again!'

The dapper skeleton smiled through cracked and dry not-lips. "But I'm so glad to see you, boy."

Zero nuzzled Jack's face, and Jack stroked his cool, silky ears. Then the ghost dog abruptly pulled back and tugged at Jack's sleeve.

Jack stared fuzzily at him. "What is it, boy?"

The little spirit continued tugging with such persistence that Jack gathered what precious little remained of his flagging strength and stumbled a few steps. Zero perked up and retreated a few feet, no longer tugging. Jack tottered after him as best he could. Zero went slowly, wagging his tail and whining encouragingly whenever his master had to stop and put his skull between his knee bones.

After a while, Jack heard hints of a sound that was truly music to his ear canals. He listened carefully, trying unsuccessfully not to get his hopes up. But as he got closer, the sound only grew clearer. A genuine skeleton grin broke across his face.

He broke into an awkward, shambling half-jog and fell to his knees beside a gurgling river. "Good boy, Zero!" Jack panted. "Very good boy!"

Zero lifted his head proudly.

Jack collapsed onto his hands and knees and drank until he felt more than a little bit sick. He couldn't help himself: the water was cold and it tasted like honey on his sandpapery tongue. Finally, when his stomach couldn't hold another sip, Jack slumped against the bank and sighed contentedly. Little black dots no longer swam in the corners of his vision. He could swallow without feeling like there was fire shooting down his throat. Zero floated up to Jack's face.

"Wuff!"

Jack kissed the top of the dog's head. "Thank you, Zero."

The smell of something fruity got his attention, and he realized that Zero had something in his mouth. Wagging, Zero dropped a fat cactus fruit into his master's lap. Jack had tried numerous times to climb up the cacti that were bearing fruit in order to soothe his gnawing hunger. Twice he'd fallen down and nearly fractured something. He'd lost count of how many times he'd been poked to the point that he gave up. For the first time since he'd gotten lost, Jack felt a swell of hope.

"VERY good boy, Zero!"

Master and pup curled up together and had a fitful sleep. When the sun came up, they made a hearty breakfast of fruit and river water. It was the best meal that Jack could have asked for. While Zero licked himself clean, Jack wondered where to proceed from here. Should he try to retrace his steps? Should he stay near this water source and send Zero to find help? A distant sound interrupted his thoughts. He sat up and tilted his skull to one side, frowning in concentration.

Sure enough, the sound came again. Jack's sockets widened, and Zero whined softly. Somebody was shooting nearby.

"That isn't Sally shooting, is it?" Jack mumbled to himself as he squinted through the morning mist. Zero whimpered in fear and pressed his ghostly body against Jack's legs for reassurance. The skeleton stroked the terrified ghost dog, trying his best to keep him calm. "Shh, Zero, it'll be all right," Jack comforted. Zero didn't seem particularly convinced by Jack's words. He whined again and pointed his glowing pumpkin nose towards a hazy town in the distance. Screams of terror and gunfire could be heard even at that distance, and smoke hovered in the air like the spirits of fallen angels.

Jack lumbered to his feet and took one tentative step towards the town. He knew that it would be potential suicide to enter the town at such an inopportune moment, but that little blip on the horizon could be his only chance of returning home. He supposed that he could wait until the commotion was over and travel to the town then, but perhaps he would be far too dehydrated to complete the journey if he didn't come across any water sources during his little expedition.

The town was probably no more than five or six miles away, but skeletons couldn't hold food or fluid in their bodies for very long, and several hours of vigorous travel without sustenance could be enough to send Jack into a permanent coma. Flinching at the thought, Jack took another hesitant baby step towards the town and looked back at Zero for support. Zero gave a feeble bark and floated over to Jack's ankles.

Jack grinned as he strode towards the town with Zero yipping at his side. "Come on, Zero! What are we waiting for? I'll be back with my sweet California Rose in no time!" Jack grinned. Who cared if he got a little peckish during the trip and saw spots for the next five hours? The thought of being home with his darling Catherine made all the trouble of getting to the town worth it.

Sally grinned smugly as she stepped over the body of a victim, swinging her bag full of cash in her hand. She and her gang had successfully robbed the bank of Christmas Town and managed to kill a few dozen people in the process. It had been a good thing that the heist had kept her mind off Jack, because she knew she wouldn't have been able to shoot anybody if she had.

There was something about that day that had made her consider a more civil path in life, such as being a seamstress. The pain she'd felt upon training her muzzle on his bony chest had made her wonder if her victims ever felt the same pain when the bullet sank into their heart. She'd never thought about it before-she'd told herself that it didn't matter what her victims felt upon their deaths-but the very idea of causing so much trauma niggled into her heart like a dirt-coated worm and made her wince with guilt. Perhaps this wasn't such a good life after all...

Sally forced herself to snap out of her thoughts as a furious policeman dressed in the red and white uniform of Christmas Town charged with his gun trained on her, yelling at the top of his lungs for her to put her hands up. Instead of obeying, Sally calmly smiled, aimed her gun at the policeman, and prepared to fire.

Her shot went way off to the side, missing the policeman entirely, as a bullet burned into her arm. She swore and whirled on the second attacker with a ferocious snarl.

"VARMINT!"

"Sal!" Corpse the Kid's father, Tall Stiff, knocked another policeman in the head with a bag of loot (deluxe gingerbread cookies).

"What!" Sally barked, her way of telling him, 'I'm a little busy right now!'. She didn't like to waste words. If she could communicate with a single word or a gesture, she'd do it. It saved her time and added to her air of intimidation.

"We're outnumbered!" Tall Stiff hollered. "And there's reinforcements still coming in!"

Sally swore again. Christmas Town, while loaded with opulence, was heavily populated and had a sizable law force. She'd known what they were getting into, but being forced away from a heist was always annoying.

"Then let's get out while the getting's good!" The outlaw rag doll shouted back.

The wart-nosed corpse nodded and gestured to those that hadn't been within earshot, indicating that it was time to make tracks. Sally whistled for Sutures as the other members of her gang jumped onto their own horses and exchanged fire with the growing resistance. She didn't holler at them to wait up. She could darn well fend for herself, and it was stupid for anyone to stay in the line of fire any longer than they absolutely had to.

Sutures came, ears flattened against her skull in protest of the close-range firing.

"S'alright," Sally hollered to her, as she swung up into the saddle. "We're done here."

CRACK!

Sutures danced to the side as a bullet whizzed by so close that it sent the town's famous white, powdery snow into Sally's eyes and nose. Snorting in irritation, the outlaw yanked on Sutures's reins and kicked her in the side.

"H'yah!"

Not needing any further encouragement, the mare took off like a scalded cricket. The yelling and pounding of their pursuers followed just behind them. Sally wasn't worried. Sutures was the fastest critter in Nightmare County, and she had the endurance to wait to slow down until they got to somewhere relatively safe. Still, it couldn't hurt to thin out the ranks a little...

Sally squeezed off a shot, and a horse squealed and went to its knees. Another shot, and its master tumbled to the snow in a halo of white powder. The unwelcome thoughts invaded again, and she couldn't help wondering what that feller did in his spare time. If he had a family. If he'd known what he was getting into when he'd answered his town's call for protection.

'Get a grip,' she growled, fighting down a tremor in her wrist. She'd fought these thoughts before that dang skeleton came along, and she'd do the same now.

Several more red-and-white reinforcements swept in from the side, and Sally was forced to take a detour. She held on to the reins with one hand and fired back with her other.

CRACK.

'Wonder if that feller knew that he'd never get up again after today?'

CRACK.

'Is some sweetheart going to pine away for him?'

CRACK.

'Shut up, brain! You're kinda needed here!'

Sutures was pulling ahead of the Christmas Town steeds; Sally had known that she would. It wouldn't be long, she figured, before she'd lose them. A smirk crept its way across her stitched lips, but she knew it wasn't time to celebrate yet. That'd come soon enough; there was no point in getting cocky.

As if to drive this point home, a river appeared in the path and grew closer by the second. Sally got a good grip with her riding hand and steered straight for the bridge that spanned a narrow section of the angry water.

Apprehension fluttered in her stuffing but she shoved it down. The bridge looked a little rickety, but she and Sutures didn't have a whole lot of other options. Sutures's steady thumping changed to hollow clomping as she crossed from sand to wood. Some of the less-secured loot knocked into the railing, which was obviously under repair and even more obviously unfinished. Sally licked her lips but didn't slow down.

They were nearly across when a bullet screamed into the water, sending mist and splinters of railing into Sutures's face. Snorting and sneezing, the mare pitched away from the irritants. Sally turned in the saddle to fire back...and felt an all-too-familiar sensation at her shoulder socket.

"Oh no no no no no!"

Sure enough, before the second 'no', her damaged arm gave way and audibly tore from the rest of her body. The patchwork redhead tried to catch the reins in her other hand but she was already unbalanced. She tumbled off Sutures's back and went over what remained of the railing.

The fall lasted only a couple of seconds and culminated in a breath-snatching splash. Chilly black waves and snowy foam closed over Sally's long reddish hair and stole the sound from her scream. She clawed at the blackness with tiny fingers as she was thrown every which way but up. She could already feel herself getting heavier as her body took on water. She couldn't see, couldn't stop, couldn't breathe. Panic edged out adrenaline, and the last of her air bubbled out of her in a useless scream.

Who would've thought that Shifty-Eyed Sal, the gal who outrode lynch mobs and relished a good shootout, couldn't do something as simple as swim?

* * *

Jack walked into the town with Zero slobbering at his side and shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness as he scanned the area for any signs of the shootout. When he was certain that the firefight was over, he took a step into the town and gasped with surprise.

It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Colorful white things glittered in the air like falling gemstones. Beautiful houses like residences pulled straight from the pages of an ancient fairytale loomed cheerily upwards like kindly giants' hands. A q-u-e-e-r little green thing topped with a bow tripped him up, and when Jack curiously tugged open the package after recovering his balance, a stuffed teddy bear with long white fur tumbled out of it with a deliriously happy smile on its face. Elsewhere, tiny delicate creatures with pointed ears sang a merry tune that filled Jack's heart with pure joy. For once, he was speechless. It wasn't until Zero kicked white powder into his face that Jack remembered where he was and began to belt out a spontaneous, gleeful showtune:

'What's this? What's this? There's color everywhere! What's this? There's white things in the air! I can't believe my eyes, I must be dreaming, wake up Jack, this isn't fair! What's this?

What's this? What's this? There's something very wrong! What's this? There's people singing songs! The streets are line with little creatures laughing, everybody seems so happy, have I possibly gone daffy? What's-"

Jack's song was cut off as he tripped once again, this time over a heavy red-and-white striped object in the road. "Sir, you really have to move these fallen logs so they won't trip up your fair citizens!" Jack protested as he got to his feet and brushed off the white powdery stuff. Grinning with giddy happiness, Jack brushed some of the white stuff into his hand and licked it. It tasted as clear and fresh as the water in the river had.

Giggling like a madman, Jack waltzed about the town square for several moments, reveling in the strange and joyous new sight that stretched on as far as his wondering sockets could see. Something about the town filled him with a fantastic feeling that he hadn't felt in who knows how long. It was almost as good as being back home with his beloved Catherine whispering romantic things into his ear canals beside him.

Forget Scary Hollow, the town he called home-this was the place where he wanted to spend the rest of his days! He'd move into one of the marvelous-looking houses that apparently tasted of something a bit like candy and rise up through the ranks to become the new mayor of this glorious town, whatever it was called...

Zero's frantic barking woke Jack from his lovely daydream. "What is it, Zero?" Jack sighed, reluctantly stepping off the cotton candy clouds of his dream vision. The tiny ghost dog was tugging at the sleeve of the man he had tripped over. The poor fellow had obviously been trampled by the mob who had conducted the shooting he'd seen on the horizon. His face was covered with soot and his uniform was so torn that it resembled nothing more than a pile of colorful rags. A bright red liquid dribbled down from a hole in his chest, which was as charred as the remains of a campfire.

Curious, Jack dipped his finger in the red stuff and licked it off. The unwholesome metallic scent immediately triggered memories of his own death-fire, screaming, blood, and darkness. He recognized that the man must have been shot by whoever had stormed the town with their gunfire and was now bleeding to death, if he wasn't dead already.

Jack knelt sadly behind the man and poked cautiously at his scruffy white beard. "Sir? Can you hear me?" Jack inquired. A low moan was all Jack got in reply. The skeleton's face brightened up as soon as he realized that the man was still alive. "Wake up! Wake up! I'll help you find the person who did this to you! Besides, it's so bright and lovely here; it would be such a shame to die and leave it all behind..."

Jack yanked eagerly at the man's shredded clothes in an attempt to revive him. The man still did not respond to Jack's prodding. Zero tugged at the man's sleeve again and barked as loud as he could, doing his best to aid his master. After about half an hour, it was apparent that the man wouldn't get up anytime soon.

Jack sighed and flopped back onto the ground. "Well, Zero, we've done our best...I suppose the only thing we can do for the poor fellow now is to bury him." Zero nuzzled Jack's hand comfortingly as the saddened skeleton let out a whimper. The miserable whimpering soon dissolved into wracking sobs, and although Jack did not shed any tears, it could not be more obvious that he was weeping for the death of the man who had been shot down. The juxtaposition of death against such a cheery backdrop lent a chill to the morning air that had been merely a frosty nipping a few minutes earlier.

Just as Jack was about to bury the man, however, he heard a faint cough and a whisper straining to be heard over the singing of the winter wind. Shocked by this unexpected pronouncement, Jack leaned in closer to catch the dying man's last words. "Sally..." the man whispered hoarsely, coughing up blood and trying his best to make himself audible to his rather strange listener.

"Sally? She's here? Oh, where is she? I've been so longing to find her!" Jack cried.

The man pulled back his chapped lips into something that was a cross between a smile and a grimace before he spoke again. "Sally...the wretched girl shot me...rode away on a fine chestnut mare...don't know where she is, but promise me you'll..." The dying man's words trailed off as his chest heaved for the last time.

Jack held his hand and leaned in even closer. "Promise you what? I'll do anything! Just say the word and by God, I will do it even if I have to die again!" Jack vehemently swore. He waited eagerly for several minutes to hear what the promise was, but he never heard a thing. Dejected, Jack turned back to Zero to get an idea as to what he should do next. Zero simply folded back his ears and wailed mournfully to the sky above, throwing back his little white head for a proper howling effect. It was then that Jack realized that the man's hand was as cold as the winter's first frost.

"Zero..." Jack whispered as he sadly took one last look at the man's face. Reverently, he arranged the dead man's hands into a peaceful position resembling relaxed limbs in sleep and closed his eyes. Then, looking around the area to search for something he could bury the dead man in, he spied a long coat on the ground and picked it up. It was black, scruffy, and soaked with blood, but it would make a sufficient burial shroud for the man.

Carrying the coat in his arms, Jack returned to the dead man's side and covered him in the black shroud. Then, getting sudden inspiration from the white material around him, Jack used the white powder to cover the man's body in a beautiful patina of snow. Stepping back to admire his work, Jack took one long last look at the man's grave before turning around and heading deeper into the heart of the town.

Zero accompanied Jack in silence as the mournful skeleton continued on his way, albeit less cheerfully than he had before. As he was walking, a gleaming object on the ground caught his attention. Gracefully plucking the thing from the ground to inspect it, Jack realized with a start that it was a silver sewing needle. Puzzled, Jack wondered where on Earth it could have come from. It certainly wasn't his own, and Zero definitely wouldn't have dropped it. Perhaps it was the dead man's. Jack quickly ruled out that idea-it was too far from where the man had fallen to be his own needle. But who else could it have come from then?

A sudden realization hit Jack smack in the skull. It had fallen out of the coat that he'd used as a shroud. And, he was sure, that was the coat that Sally had been wearing that fateful night at the saloon.

So she must have been here fairly recently. Maybe she was even still here. Jack felt a fluttering that was equal parts nerves and excitement rise up in his stomach.

"Careful, Zero- I want you to stay behind me, boy."

Zero tipped his head, as if he was saying, 'There's not much else that she can do to me, master,' but he obeyed nevertheless.

Jack traveled through the town with care, creeping as quietly as a spider across the bloodstained snow. He felt more sick at heart with every body that he passed. The dapper skeleton longed to help these wonderful people, but he could see at a glance that those he found were beyond help. What, he wondered, would drive a doll- or anyone, for that matter- to extinguish so many sparks of life?

His train of thought was derailed by Zero growling. Immediately, Jack was back on high alert. Plucking a peppermint stick from the ground and wielding it cautiously, he braced himself for anything. He approached the bank of a swollen river and noticed something struggling in the waves. It was the head and neck of a horse. With a jolt, he recognized the white stripe that ran down Sutures's face. The mare was doing her best to stay stationary in the angry water, her round eyes rolling with the shock of the cold. Every so often, she'd plunge her face under. It was almost like...

...She was looking for something. The realization smacked Jack in the sternum as he was midway through shrugging off his coat. Sutures wasn't trapped in the river by unhappy accident. She'd gone in on purpose.

"Stay here, boy," Jack told Zero, as he broke into a jog.

Zero followed after, yapping in protest. As his nose shone over the surface of the water, it illuminated a few inches of what lay below the foam. Jack reconsidered.

"On second thought...come along but be careful!"

Zero didn't need to be told twice. He flitted ahead, disappearing into the water before Jack broke the surface. His orange glow was the only thing that made it possible for Jack to see at all, and he was very thankful that he hadn't insisted that his little pup stay behind. Doing his best to avoid Sutures's hooves, Jack got a good grip on the mare's reins so he wouldn't be swept right off and had a look around. His stomach sank as he saw a slender blue body at the bottom of the riverbed.

'Oh no..'

He came up for air, took in a good gulp (just in case), and dove under. Zero pulled him by one wrist, helping him stick to his intended path. Jack kicked with all the power in his spidery legs and reached out as far as he could stretch his arms. He half-flinched as his hands touched Sally's one arm, remembering how she'd once slapped him for nothing more than asking her a question. But she didn't react, and he got his arms under and around her and started for the surface.

Her waterlogged body was a bit unwieldy but nothing that he couldn't handle. With Zero helping him and adrenaline zinging through his dried-out veins, Jack broke the surface again in just under half a minute. He made sure to keep Sally's face above the water. Sutures pressed her shivering body to his, and once he'd gotten an arm around her neck she fought her way up onto the bank. She collapsed, shaking and panting, onto one side.

Zero bent his head and licked her coat, doing what little he could to warm her. Jack reached for the coat he'd left behind and draped it across her shoulders. It didn't cover nearly enough, but it was better than nothing. He spoke soothingly to her as he rubbed her trembling muscles.

"It's okay, girl. Your mommy's safe now and we'll take you somewhere to get warmed up. You did a good job."

Something made him freeze mid-rubdown. At first, he couldn't pinpoint the cause of his anxiety; he only knew that it was building by the moment. Realization struck like a cranky rattlesnake.

Sally wasn't breathing.

Jack stared at the patchwork doll in shock. Sally's sharp black eyes were closed, and her face looked just a shade bluer than normal. Jack reached out a bony hand to touch her face and reeled back in terror when he realized how cold it was. Had Sally already drowned in the river, or was she just unconscious?

"Oh, Zero, what do I do now?!" Jack panicked. Zero let out a tiny woof of confusion and hovered closer to Sally, his tiny nose illuminating her deathly pale face. Sutures snorted as she rolled onto her side, but squealed in terror as her legs gave out on her. Jack rushed to the mare and continued to rub her down, making encouraging noises to soothe her.

Once the panicky animal had settled down, Jack returned to Sally's side and considered what he should do. He should probably take her to a doctor, but he had no idea where he could find one. Besides, there would be no point in taking her if she was already dead. The only other option was to attempt to push the river water out of her lungs. That wasn't a great option either, as Jack didn't remember very much from the first-aid class he'd taken a while back in college, but he couldn't just let Sally die like this.

Reluctantly, Jack pressed his hand to her chest and pressed down experimentally. Sally coughed up water and stirred. Jack's heart skipped a few beats and he giggled with delight. Apparently he wasn't as bad at first aid as he'd thought. He pressed again, causing more water to spurt from Sally's mouth like a fountain.

After a few more torrents of water had emerged from Sally's mouth, the feisty redhead began to shiver. Tenderly, Jack picked up his coat and wrapped it snugly around her before he placed her head in his lap. As he waited for Sally to revive, he found himself running his fingers through her sopping-wet hair.

Zero barked with glee at Jack's startled face. He hadn't realized what he was dong and immediately stopped when he noticed. Still, a tiny part of him simmered with disappointment at his own reserve. Sighing, Jack gave in to that little voice and began to stroke Sally's hair again.

What harm could it do, really? He hoped she wouldn't be too mad when she woke up, but there was something about her helplessness that moved his heart to pity. As Zero hovered closer to Sally, Jack gave a signal with his hand to Zero, and the ghost dog's bright nose lit up even more, providing a modicum of heat to dry Sally's wet body.

Jack watched her breathe, soothed by the rhythmic rise and fall of of her jacket-covered breast. The knowledge that he had helped her breathe again made him feel warm inside even though his bones were still dripping river water. His fingers ran through her long shiny hair, in no particular hurry. Periodically, he'd stop and gently work on little snarls until they came loose.

Her eyes flickered open as he was in the middle of undoing a particularly stubborn knot. His undead heart stopped. He opened his mouth, about to apologize for taking such a liberty while she wasn't in any state to protest it. The words dried up as he saw that her eyes were glazed. She looked half-conscious, if that.

Her red lips worked slowly and parted just a crack; her cold tongue struggled to get words past her chattering teeth. "Whuh-where am-muh I?"

"On the outskirts of Christmas Town," Jack told her, softly, not realizing that his fingers were still twined in her hair.

Her brow wrinkled. "I'm nuh-not dead?"

Jack smiled. "No."

"Mmkay."

Her head lolled in his lap, and her eyes slipped shut again. Jack doubted that she'd even remember the exchange when she woke up again later. He chuckled and resumed stroking. Feeling how chilly her hair and skin were was making him feel even colder! Sutures was still shaking, too, he noticed with a frown.

Zero had his nose turned up as bright as it would go, but it just wasn't enough for two adults and a horse. The dapper skeleton frowned. It would seem that it was time for him to test his limited survival skills yet again. What a vacation this was turning out to be!

Sally woke slowly, beckoned from uneasy dreams by a soft crackling and Jack's well-intentioned efforts to get some hot chocolate down her throat without disturbing her rest. She rolled to one side and coughed several times, wincing each time as metaphorical splinters of ice scraped the inside of her throat. A bony hand patted and then rubbed her back.

"Sorry."

She was too sluggish to pull away or be irritated.

"S'alright."

The patchwork spitfire glanced slowly over both shoulders. Sutures was covered in a thick quilt. She and a little ghost dog were eating some kind of mash that was warm enough to steam just slightly. A small, contained fire sent wisps of smoke into the darkening sky, fogging over the few shyly peeping stars.

She sat up a little more, unable to help grimacing as the saturated stuffing in her torso squished audibly. "Where'd you get all this stuff?"

"From Christmas Town."

Her eyes flew open. "We're still that close to the town?"

Jack nodded.

"But that makes no sense," she muttered, her brain struggling to process what felt like far too much at once, "They'd have strung me up by now."

"Well, quite a few of your friends have taken the local sheriff and his men hostage."

So her gang had come back with reinforcements of their own when they hadn't heard back from her. Sally gave in to the pounding in her head and allowed herself the luxury of lying down to relax just for the moment. She exhaled, half-sigh and half-groan, and leaned closer to the fire. She felt the ground beneath her shifting and realized that it wasn't ground at all, but Jack's lap padded with blankets. He scooted as close to the fire as he could without sticking his knees right in it.

The outlaw grunted in what could be loosely interpreted as thanks and held her hands in front of the flames. Dimly, she realized that someone had reattached her other arm. She glanced down at the stitching and knew in a heartbeat that it hadn't been Jack.

As if he was reading her thoughts, the lanky skeleton told her, "A tree helped me put your arm back on. He brought a lot of the blankets and food too."

Sally's stomach plummeted to her frigid little toes. So the Hanging Tree knew that Jack was still ali...single-dead. Had he told anyone else? Had any others in the gang seen Jack too? Oh, if either of those was the case, she could kiss her reputation- and possibly the support of her gang- goodbye. Somehow, she just couldn't work up the energy to worry about that just now. The patchwork doll concentrated on getting her strength back.

Jack lifted a mug to her cheek. "Do you want to try again on the hot cocoa?"

Sally wondered if anything fazed this guy.

"Sure," she mumbled, after a moment, "But fer the love of stink, let me sit up first."

"Of course."

As she sat up, he shifted and wrapped his arms around her. If he hadn't, she would have toppled over. His long fingerbones laced with her little blue fingers, helping her grip the mug and raise it to her lips. The heat that stirred in the pit of her stomach had little to do with the sweet, savory cocoa.

"I'm terribly sorry," he was telling her, "But you're still worn out from the river, you see- and I didn't want to make this any harder for you than it had to be..."

Of course he was sorry. He had a sweetheart waiting back at home; he wouldn't hold someone else like this unless it was absolutely necessary. In addition, she hadn't exactly treated him with tenderness during what little time that they'd spent conscious together. He was only helping her because he was too softhearted not to.

Sally told herself these things as she sipped at her cocoa and leaned back in his arms. She still couldn't quell the terror that fluttered in her slowly-drying stuffing. Because no matter what she told herself, Sally didn't want him to let go. And that frightened her way more than any near-drowning could.

"OUCH!"

Lock sucked vigorously at his wounded fingers, scowling blackly at the cactus standing before him. He would have given it a good kick had he not learned the imprudence of that a few tries ago.

Shock sneered up at him. "Quit whining- we wouldn't have to be doing this if you guys had packed anything besides candy and stink bombs!"

"Yeah, well, if you hadn't put BARREL in charge of getting the food and water, we wouldn't be doing this either!"

"Hey!" Barrel protested.

He threw a rock at Shock, missed, and clocked Lock in the side of the head. Snarling, Lock leapt down from the cactus arm and landed soundly on both of Shock's feet. The trio transformed into a hyperactive tumbleweed of screaming and punching. After a few minutes, the tumbleweed broke apart with no clear victor emerging. The three glowered at each other and rubbed their bruises.

Then, a malicious sweetness creeping into his voice, Lock announced, "Well, I've tried getting fruit and water out of that thing eleven times now. It's your turn, Shockie."

Shock snarled at the hated nickname and turned to her other cohort, coaxing, "Barrel...?"

The skeleton boy averted his eyes and shook his head several times, clutching his swollen hands to his thick chest.

Shock blew out a sigh and adjusted the brim of her enormous hat. "Fine. Gimme a boost."

"Make it fast, or Doll Face and her gang will be old by the time we get to Christmas Town." Lock ordered.

"Hey, who was the one who took twenty minutes just to climb the stupid cactus?!"

Shock's face locked into a vicious snarl for a girl her age as she reached for the fruits hidden beyond the cactus spines with Lock groaning underneath as he supported her. She wasn't going to let these idiots hinder their goal. Oogie Boogie had trusted the three of them with tracking down Shifty-Eyed Sal, and there was no way that she was going to let her idiotic brothers stop her from carrying out Oogie's orders.

"Well, you couldn't exactly get the cactus fruit either, Miss Smarty-Pants," Lock snapped.

"Oh, shut up!" Shock retorted. Lock stuck his tongue out in contempt but refrained from commenting any further. He knew as well as Shock that Oogie Boogie would beat them black and green if they didn't bring back Sally, and they definitely wouldn't get the mountain of candy he'd promised them if they failed.

Shock squinted in contemplation for a few moments as she considered the best way to extricate the fruit. Then, covering her hand with the sleeve of her dress for safety, she reached out, plucked the fruit out of the cactus, and scrambled down Lock's back in triumph. "I've got the fru-" she started to exclaim, but she tripped over Barrel before she could finish. The fruit went flying out of her hands and landed in the nearby river with a solid smack.

"SHOCK!" Barrel scolded.

"Well, I'm not going to get it out of the river," Shock bit, sassily crossing her arms and staring down her dumb cohorts. They stared back at her defiantly and crossed their arms as well. Shock continued to stare them down, knowing that eventually one of them would give in. She'd be around Lock and Barrel long enough to know just what to do in order to coax them into doing her bidding.

Eventually, just as Shock predicted, Barrel snapped from the pressure of her stare and looked down at his misshapen feet. "Ok. I'll get it," he sulked. Making as big a show of reluctance as possible, Barrel dragged himself over to the river and jumped in after the fruit. Lock and Shock watched him go with eyes as cold as a hungry vulture's. They could care less what happened to Barrel-to them, he was just another obstacle in their race to capture Sally and return her and her gang to Oogie Boogie. All the little dopey skeleton child ever did was lick lollipops and complain. Heck, if it hadn't been for him, they'd probably have already captured Sally and be snacking on the pile of candy Oogie would provide them back in the saloon already.

Still, they couldn't help feeling just the tiniest bit uneasy when fifteen minutes had passed and Barrel hadn't returned.

"Where did he go? It can't have taken him THAT long to find the fruit!" Shock snapped.

Lock looked at her suspiciously. He could always tell when Shock was upset, and even though she was doing her best to mask it, he knew that she was worried for Barrel's safety. "Maybe he found something else that will lead us to Sally," he shrugged.

"Well, Mr. Clever Clogs, what do YOU think we should do if Barrel doesn't come back in the next thirty minutes?" Shock demanded with her hands on her hips.

A tiny frown marred Lock's normally mischievous face as he pondered. Eventually, he looked back at Shock and shrugged. "I have no idea. But we could follow the river and see where it ends. If there's a waterfall or anything, maybe Barrel went over it..."

"But we're in the middle of the desert, dummy! Of course there aren't any waterfalls!" Shock contradicted.

"Of course I knew that! It was just an idea," Lock snorted.

Shock rolled her eyes. She really wasn't that convinced that Lock knew what he was talking about. Nonetheless, she decided to follow him when he began to trek along the river's course. Really, what other choice did she have? Besides, it wasn't as if she had any particularly brilliant ideas about tracking down Barrel either.

* * *

Sally frowned and gently pried Jack's arms off from around her waist. "Well, I really have to get going. My gang will probably start looking for me if I don't return to them soon," she said brusquely.

Jack nodded, a tad bit confusion at her sudden decision to leave. "I suppose if you must..." he trailed off, as though he wished that she didn't have to depart quite so soon. Sally's heart fluttered a tiny bit in her chest, but she forced it to settle down. It probably didn't mean anything-as far as she knew, Jack was just a gentlemanly sap who'd be worried for the welfare of a tree if he happened to come across an injured one.

"Yeah, sweetheart. I must."

If he noticed the hint of mockery in her tone, he didn't take offense.

"Okay."

She set down the mug of cocoa and tried to sit up. The outlaw still felt sluggish and pretty weak, but she'd be darned if she was gonna show that in front of that city-slicker skeleton. Sally waited for the rest of her body to get the memo. Jack watched, concerned, hands hovering next to her elbows and waiting to help her. His being all solicitous was making her nervous. Before she could either fall over or punch Jack soundly in the face, a branch scraped across the ground.

"Up you go, Sal."

The Hanging Tree scooped her up, and she found a familiar handhold to steady herself until he was once again at his full height.

"Will you be coming back?" Jack asked.

Sally wasn't entirely sure if he was asking her or both of them, but she answered when the tree remained silent.

"Well, I have to come back for my horse, don't I?" Sweetly, she added, "She had better be here recovering when I DO come back."

Jack blinked twice, as if the idea of stealing the fine mare had just now been introduced to him. (Maybe it had.) "Of course."

As the Hanging Tree lumbered into town, the patchwork doll felt apprehension prickling inside her like cactus needles. Her best friend hadn't brought up the fact that Jack was still single-dead yet, but there wasn't a doubt in her mind that he would- soon. She really couldn't deal with that right now. The tree understood, as usual, and allowed the silence between them to continue unbroken. Sally curled up against his weathered bark and pressed her cheek against a spot where some idiot had attempted to carve their initials once, and wished that her brain would be willing to shut up too.

It was Lock who found Barrel nearly two hours later. He'd found a family of turtles further downriver and made friends with them. The babies of the family had eaten nearly half of the fruit before Shock grabbed the skeleton boy by the ear and hauled him by said ear until her arm got too tired to drag him any more. She and Lock engaged in synchronized yelling for the better part of the day. Finally, with sore throats and ringing ears, the trio hunkered down for the night and tried to remember what Mister Oogie Boogie had told them about keeping snakes away.

Eve was not a happy camper. As she wiped down the bar, hobbling on her bad leg, the barkeep felt her scowl growing.

She hadn't liked Oogie Boogie the minute he'd set paw in her establishment. Her fondness for him hadn't grown when he'd drank most of her ale and allowed his dinner to lay larvae in her famous pumpkin jam.

His latest move had cemented her dislike into hatred.

She'd known he was a bully. She'd known he was a perverted creep and a cheater and an opportunistic glutton.

By sending three kids alone into the desert after an outlaw that HE was supposed to catch with the promise of a beating if they returned empty-handed, he had shown her that he had no heart.

Not that Eve was full of love for that awful trio. They plucked her tail feathers, decimated her secret stash of ginger chews, and drove off half her regulars with a combination of annoying pranks and acts of violence. Not to mention they'd tried to get at what precious little remained of her booze more times than she could count.

But, as wicked and insufferable as they were, those three were only children. They hadn't packed real food or water. She doubted that they knew what to do in case of a snake bite or a sandstorm.

If he got to be sheriff, there was no telling what Oogie Boogie would do to the town.

As if summoned by her thoughts, heavy footsteps plodded across the floor. A bug screeched and then crunched and became silent forever. Smaller crunches grew closer, until the raven-like barkeep could smell the sack-creature's beetle breath. A burlap paw mussed her wing feathers.

"Quit it." Eve growled.

A low chuckle and a not-so-polite pat were his only response.

"I'm not going to tell you again, Mister."

Oogie drew closer, practically flattening her against the counter.

More than fed up, Eve let out a scream reminiscent of a cornered wildcat and drew herself up to her full nine feet. Black feathers bristled like barbed wire. Shiny brown eyes flashed over bared fangs as the feisty barkeep drew back her sinewy arm and slapped the gambler so hard that a spider popped out of one of his eye holes.

"I SAID- knock it-!"

His fist squeezed her gimpy leg and cracked it against the counter. Eve screamed again, this time in agony.

"I've about had enough of you too, honey feathers."

As she struggled to keep his other paw away from her fragile throat, Eve struggled to form a coherent sentence. She could barely squeak one word past the pain that was pulsing from her leg and filling her world.

"Henry..!"

At the sound of Eve's voice, the Sheriff bustled into the room and let out a shriek of surprise when he saw his precious barkeep struggling to keep herself conscious while Oogie loomed over her like a dark shadow, laughing evilly. Furious at the act of cruelty Oogie had committed, the Sheriff stormed into the bar, shoved Oogie in the stomach, and placed himself between the putrid sack-man and Eve like a fatty wall.

"How DARE you harm my beloved Eve!" the Sheriff roared. His voice rattled the glasses in the saloon and caused Oogie to tremble for just the briefest of moments.

The stunned sack-man lay on his stomach, groaning as he recovered from the shock of being walloped. Then, with a suddenness that made Eve squawk with surprise, Oogie leapt to his feet with a menacing growl. "You ain't gonna get between me and Eve," bellowed Oogie. "Just step outta the way, fatty-man, and let me deal with this unfinished business between the two of us.." He raised his paw in warning, and Eve flinched with pain, as though she could already feel the slap of Oogie's paw on her face.

"Not now, you won't," rumbled the Sheriff. With surprising speed, the Sheriff pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket and clapped them around Oogie's wrists. "You're coming with me. I think a little time in a jail cell would do you some good."

"YOU AIN'T GONNA DO THIS TO ME! I'M MISTER OOGIE BOOGIE, THE BEST GAMBLIN' MAN IN ALL OF NIGHTMARE COUNTRY!" bawled Oogie. He attempted to writhe out of the Sheriff's grasp, but the pudgy man's determination was more than a match for Oogie's brute strength.

"Not this time, Oogie Boogie," the Sheriff replied confidently as he led the protesting potato-sack man towards the door.

A couple of the stronger vampires and a werewolf took over from there, escorting Oogie towards the town jail. The Sheriff waddled back to Eve as fast as his legs would carry him. The barkeep was curled up against the counter, pressing a rag to the growing red blotch that was spreading through her pants leg.

He knelt down beside her, and his triumphant face was replaced by his worried one. "Are you alright, Miss Eve?"

She stared at him without responding. Not sure if she was in shock, the Sheriff waved a hand in front of her face. He noticed that the witches were staring at him too. In fact, most of the bar was staring at him. His thick neck grew hot from the attention.

"What?"

Everyone continued to stare, unable to help wondering if this was the same Sheriff that regularly had spasmodic fits and sprinted in the opposite direction if a hornet buzzed into his path.

Finally, Eve broke the silence. Massaging her bruised throat and wincing slightly, the barkeep croaked, "'Beloved'?"

The Sheriff found himself wondering where the nearest hole was and how fast he could bury himself in it.

When Sally returned a few hours later to retrieve Sutures, she found Jack curled up next to the mare, singing an annoying tune that made her want to slap him in the face.

"My darling Catherine...a thousand miles from this desert heck...wherever you are, know that I still see you whenever I dream...and don't worry, because I'll come home no matter what..."

"I don't know if anyone ever told you, but Sutures doesn't exactly have an ear for music," Sally snarled. She'd meant for that remark to be sarcastic, but instead it came out as bitingly acerbic.

Jack turned to face her and cocked his head to the side questioningly. Sally turned her head to the side and tossed her head slightly so that her long red hair covered her face. Cheeks burning with shame, Sally stuttered, "I-I meant that...that Sutures doesn't like it when people make loud noises around her. She spooks as easy as anything and I don't want her running off and getting herself stranded in a cactus patch."

Sutures snorted and turned to look at her, as though to deny Sally's comment. Jack blinked in confusion and stroked the horse. "Oh, I didn't know that," Jack said mildly. Getting to his feet, he sauntered away from the mare and stood next to Sally. He waited patiently as Sally recovered her confidence behind her forest of hair.

There it was again-that darned skeleton was making her go all soft again. She could've sworn that she felt jealous of Jack's girlfriend back home during his little song. But, of course, an outlaw could never settle into the comfortable life of marriage. Besides, what would her gang think of her when they realized that she'd let Jack get away single-dead because she had potential romantic feelings for him? No, her life was not a fairytale, and if she was going to continue to live it in her gritty, life-taking way, she'd have to push aside her emotions so she could concentrate on the important things.

People like Jack were still laboring under the delusion that being nice got you anywhere in life. She had tried to be sweet and easygoing once, and gotten stepped on.

Every day.

Repeatedly.

Until she had snapped.

No, no. She had promised herself that she was never going to think about her stint with Dr. Finklestein ever again.

Because when she started to remember, Sally started to wonder...maybe, if she'd been just a little more patient...if she'd tried harder to get along...

NO. The old coot had had it coming to him. He probably wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway. She refused to take responsibility for what had happened.

It wasn't until Jack's hand rested oh-so-gently on her shoulder that the outlaw realized that she was trembling.

"Are you okay?"

She brushed his hand off like it was a scorpion, only replying, "You're pretty handsy for a guy who has a sweetheart waiting for him back at home."

"She doesn't mind it when I take an interest in other g-I mean people if I'm worried about their well-being," Jack stuttered. Sally stared at him in shock, hardly daring to believe what he had said. She could have sworn that he'd nearly said 'Take an interest in other girls', as though he'd abruptly considered dropping his relationship with his darling Catherine.

But if he really did want to ditch his girlfriend, why would he be interested in HER of all people? Hadn't she shown him how dangerous she was time and time again? Yet he still kept coming back, each time even more sweet and gentlemanly than before. Either he really was crazy and stupid, or he was the most patient skeleton on the face of the planet.

"Well, that's rather nice of you, but I really ought to take Sutures and get back to my gang," Sally interrupted, a sense of urgency contaminating her voice like a barrel of radioactive chemicals. Walking over to the chestnut mare, Sally vaulted onto Sutures' back and pressed her heels to the mare's side.

Sutures instantly turned to face Jack, who was staring at Sally with an expression as blank as paper on his face. Sally cleared her throat and spoke again with a hint of unease. "Look, I'm gonna be riding off pretty soon, and unless you want to get run over by Sutures, I'd suggest you move out of the way."

Still, Jack did not budge an inch. For a moment, Sally seriously considered spurring Sutures into a gallop and plowing over Jack right then and there. She wouldn't have to shoot him and she'd be able to kill any possible suspicion from her gang about leaving Jack single-dead so far. It'd be quick, easy, and fairly painless. All she had to do was press her heels to Sutures' side, click with her tongue, and it would all be over for bone man Jack.

A flicker of doubt resonated inside her like a melancholy note, but she stuffed it down as she gave Sutures a hard kick in the side. Just to make sure the chestnut mare had interpreted her command properly, she made a clicking noise with her tongue to signal the mare to speed up.

A look of pure terror and confusion marred Jack's face for a split second as Sutures barreled towards him. Then, as instinct got the better of him, he screamed like a coyote caught in a trap and headed for the hills. An evil smile flickered across Sally's face as she relentlessly chased him on Sutures' back. With a pinch of luck, she might just be able to drive him off a cliff and end this gibbering, sing-songy headache of an undead skeleton once and for all.

But then Sutures reared in terror and a scream pierced the air as the thump of a falling body echoed through the air. To Sally's horror, the body of a dazed child was lying right under Sutures' hooves. She managed to yell, "Git outta the way, you stupid kid!" just before Sutures' hooves came down on top of the shrieking child.

The mare danced to the side with a grunt of surprise. Sally leapt to the ground and knelt down, pressing two fingers to the child's neck. The kid was a scrawny scrap of a girl; it was hard to fit two fingers across her neck. An involuntary sigh of relief puffed from the patchwork doll's lips when she felt a pulse skittering like an agitated flea against her fingertips. The girl's eyes opened in a squint at the contact.

"Oooow."

She immediately tried to sit up.

"Slow down there," Sally told her, her voice losing its usual edge, "You might have a broken neck."

The girl raised her head and tilted it from side to side. "I don't think so."

The outlaw swallowed a smile. The kid had pluck, a quality that was rarer than gold nuggets in most women of Nightmare County. Hopefully she wouldn't grow out of it. "How do your arms and legs feel?"

While the little urchin experimentally wiggled every one of her fingers and toes, Sally took the opportunity to look her over. There was a wince-worthy cut along the side of her head, courtesy of the edge of one of Sutures's hooves. The ear on that side of her head was smashed out of shape and bleeding considerably.

Mercifully, the kid hadn't gotten her torso or skull stepped on. That was partly thanks to Sutures's flinching. The rest was due to some dern impressive reflexes.

The crazy-haired girl groaned when she tried to move the toes on her left foot. "Nnh- my left leg…"

Sally had already noticed it. The kid's left leg was bent in a way that it wasn't meant to bend. It was a bad break if she'd ever seen one. She hated to think what a full grown horse's weight could do to such little bones.

"Easy," the spitfire redhead soothed, "I'll get you fixed right up. Don't worry."

The girl met her eyes reluctantly, looking up at her with something like- guilt?

Something heavy smacked into the back of Sally's head. Sally was aware of a bolt of pain, then nothing.

"We got her! We got her!" Barrel squealed with excitement. Lock held the iron bar that had brought down the murderous doll in one hand, laughing like a little devil from the pits of hell. Leaves stained the bar like a pool of blood, but even that didn't seem to faze Lock as he stuffed Sally into a huge black bag filled to the brim with sticky candy. Barrely eagerly helped him shove her in until the two were able to tug the drawstrings shut.

"Nice work there, Shock," Lock complimented the witchy girl. "If you hadn't been almost crushed by that horse, then we never would have been able to capture Sally!"

"That wasn't an act-she actually hurt me!" Shock complained. She attempted to get to her feet, but whimpered in pain as her broken leg throbbed. Shock muttered a naughty word that Oogie Boogie would have spanked her for if he'd been around, overcome with pain.

Barrel started to snicker, but Lock whacked him on the back of the head just hard enough for the skeleton child to see red and black spots. "OW!" Barrel squeaked. The deadly look on Lock's face convinced him to shut up, however. Obediently silently, Barrel walked over to Shock's side and offered her a hand. "Here, Shock, I'll help you up," he offered sweetly.

"I'm just fine! I don't need your help!" Shock spat. Surprised, Barrel walked back and looked at Shock, a hurt expression cloaking his face. "Are...are you sure? Because if you really broke your leg, then you could ride on top of the sack while we drag it home," Barrel asked.

"Of course I'm fine! I'll show YOU!" Shock snorted. Forcing herself to her feet, she limped over to the bag and managed to stand next to it for a few seconds before flopping down in the dust again. "Ow..."

"You know, maybe it would be a good idea if you stayed inside the sack and made sure that Sally didn't try to escape," Lock interjected. He flinched as Shock gave him her 'that's-such-a-stupid-idea-you-dimwit' face, but all he could do was to shrug sheepishly. "I mean...your leg and all...and what if Sally woke up and shot a hole in the bag?" he stuttered awkwardly.

"Hmmph," Shock harrumphed. She made no comment, but she quietly opened the bag, scuttled in, and made herself comfortable. An evil grin crossed her face as she looked at the unconscious redhead. Sure, she'd had to get a broken leg for her trouble, but her injury had turned out to be the perfect opportunity to distract Sally long enough for Lock to knock her out. If they were lucky, they'd be able to bring Sally to Oogie Boogie and lock the feisty doll up in a cell before the spitfire outlaw even came to.

A horrible shriek of surprise startled Shock out of her thoughts. Cautiously peeking out of the bag, she let out a pretty good scream herself when she saw Sally's horse kicking and biting Lock and Barrel as they hauled away the candy-filled sack.

The chestnut mare kicked Barrel over, and the skeleton boy hollered in pain. Lock swore as the horse's teeth sank into his tail and tugged. He whirled around and smacked her in the head with the same crowbar that he'd used to knock out her mistress. She sank down with a groan. Lock sneered, yanked his tail away from her lips, and picked up the sack again.

"Ow! CAREFUL!" hissed Shock.

"Watch it on your end, Barrel!" Lock accused.

Barrel silently took the blame, and both boys tried to be as careful as two boys under the age of ten can manage to be.

Doc Jewel burst into The Deadly Nightshade, her glasses hanging askew. The Sheriff started, both his faces trying to get a look at the door. Eve blinked and snorted awake, but didn't lift her head from his lap. (She'd told him earlier that she thought the blood had started rushing to her brain)

"What's the matter, Miss Jewel?" questioned the Sheriff, hoping that his cheeks didn't look anywhere near as red as they felt.

Jewel panted as she leaned on the door frame, sides heaving as she fought to catch her breath. "The kids got her- they got Doll Face!"

The Sheriff's face switched from happy to anxious to happy and back again all within the short time span of ten seconds. "Did they really?" was the only thing he was able to force out of his lips. He was in such great shock that for a moment he couldn't even remember his own name. It took him about three minutes to recall that his first name began with an F and his last name began with an H.

Doc Jewel nodded so vigorously that her spectacles fell off and shattered on the floor. "Yes, they did! They've got her in a sack and they're dragging it through the town!" she exclaimed breathlessly.

Eve lifted her head and squinted suspiciously at the blonde-haired widow. "Dragging a sack through the town? Are you sure they haven't let her loose to create havoc in the local candy shop?" she snorted.

Jewel opened her mouth to answer, but just at that moment the terrible trio burst through the door, grinning devilishly. "We got her! We got her! She's right here!" they squealed in unison.

Tugging eagerly on the drawstrings, the terrible trio tore open the bag to reveal a dazed Shifty-Eyed Sal peeking out of the sack. Struggling to comprehend the situation before her, Sally crawled out of the sack and struggled to her feet. Removing her gun from her coat pocket, she scanned the room before allowing the muzzle of the gun to point at the dumbfounded Sheriff. "Would somebody tell me what the h-e-l-l is goin' on around here?!" she exploded.

It was at that moment that the Sheriff remembered his name. "Frederick Henry!" he burst out enthusiastically. Sally took the eruption of laughter that followed to press her finger to the trigger of the gun and let a single bullet fly in the direction of the Sheriff. Much to her surprise, the bullet got stuck in a crack on the side of the Sheriff's face. The Sheriff made a strange movement with his neck, as if to turn his head, but was unable to move any further than two inches.

"Why must my face always be so one-sided?" the Sheriff groaned comically. Sally simply rolled her eyes and wondered how many more idiots she'd encounter before the week was up.

"Shut up." she snarled.

The Sheriff shut up.

"That goes for all of you." Sally turned to take in Jewel, Eve, and the trio. "Nobody m-"

Her legs gave out. The outlaw's face hit the floor with an audible smack, and the Sheriff winced.

Shock rolled her eyes as she wriggled out of the bag. "She'd have filled us all full of lead if I hadn't messed with some of her stitching."

"Yeah, yeah, you're brilliant," grumbled Lock, who was annoyed that he hadn't thought of that first.

As Sally did her best to sit up, everyone in the bar inched back. Lock smacked her in the head again. She swore at him, making Jewel's hands fly to her beak.

"Knock it off, kid!"

"Don't tempt me," he retorted, feeling quite pleased with his choice of words, "We're saving you for Mister Oogie Boogie!"

"I don't believe in the boogeyman," Sally grunted, feeling for her gun.

Barrel wiggled it. "Looking for this?"

"Quit messing around with it, Barrel!" snapped Shock, one hand flying to cover her ear. She'd had enough mutilation today, thank you very much.

"Give it to me," Eve extended one hand.

Barrel hesitated, and she wiggled the ends of her fingers encouragingly. The skeleton boy tossed the gun to the barkeep, and she caught it with ease and pocketed it. The Sheriff realized that it was his turn to act, and he stood. The plump law enforcer made his way to Sally, his face still smoking. The rag doll glowered up at him through the wisps of smoke that were curling from just below his eye.

The Sheriff scowled down at her as he spoke, doing his best to sound intimidating. "It's the end of the line, Shifty-Eyed Sal."

Sally's only reply was to spit at him with stunning accuracy. He recoiled and grimaced, wiping at his chin with one sleeve. Once he'd recovered, the Sheriff retrieved his handcuffs. "Just slip your wrists in here."

She stared at him with eyes as cold as a rattlesnake's, and he felt a shudder go up his back. "You're only being all high and mighty 'cause you've got me surrounded."

Unable to confirm or deny that, the Sheriff spluttered and then snapped, "Just do it!"

"And if I don't?" the patchwork doll asked, her voice betraying not a hint of emotion.

SMACK!

The last thing that she heard was Barrel saying, "You really like using that crowbar, don't you?"

* * *

Sally became aware of a pounding in the back of her head.

'That little rat...'

Wincing, she took stock of her limbs and found that both her hands and the lower portion of her legs were missing. She could feel that her captors had loosened her stitching a good deal. It would be in her best interest to lie still and think up a plan.

"Those yellow-bellied lizards," the outlaw growled.

A chuckle rumbled through the dimness, making her stomach turn. "So they've rolled out the welcome wagon for you too, huh..."

She didn't want to look, but her wide eyes rolled to the side out of instinct. Baggy sockets leered down at her, crimped slightly by a malicious twist of a smile. "...Doll Face."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

The Hanging Tree knew something was wrong the minute that Sutures returned alone. After getting Ma Stiff to take over for him, the tree hurried to his best friend's horse. As soon as she knew that she had his attention, Sutures took off at a trot. The tree followed her to the outskirts of Christmas Town and found a patch of reddish leaves sitting in the snow like a pool of blood. A trail carved through the snow from there, as if something heavy had been dragged away.

The leafy outlaw's eyes narrowed into even smaller slits.

Sally had never been so glad for iron bars in all her life as the sack man leered at her from the adjoining cell.

After nearly a minute of incredibly invasive scrutiny, he sneered, "YOU'RE the terror of Nightmare County?"

A retort bubbled instantly to the top of Sally's mind: 'Oh, like you have room to talk, sweetheart...what are you supposed to be, a potato sack?'

But she kept her mouth shut. Without her gun and most of her mobility, mouthing off to this guy meant nothing but trouble. Sally didn't start fights that she couldn't win. That and... this sack man was giving her the creeps. So she stared at the ceiling and refused to make eye contact.

The creature next to her chuckled again, making her fabric crawl. "Cat got your tongue, sweet stitches?"

The outlaw redhead gritted her teeth. She hated being taunted. Hated it with every fiber of her being. She hated the edge of fear that was beginning to sour in her stomach.

"Or are you just bein' a sore loser?"

She hated feeling so small and powerless. What she would have given to put a bullet in his sorry mouth right then...

"This is just a pitstop," Sally muttered, with a confidence that she didn't entirely feel.

The sack man let loose a guffaw that made her cringe. "Why, are you waiting for your little gang to come ridin' to the rescue?"

"It's only a matter of time."

"I have a plan for them."

That made her feel cold all over. But she pushed the surge of anxiety down and growled, "I've helped bury a lot of fellers who said the exact same thing."

"I'm not a lot of fellers, honey."

The last word oozed out, slimy and deliberate. Sally hated herself for the involuntary trembling that started up in what remained of her arms. "Doesn't matter. No one's bulletproof."

Another guffaw assaulted her ears. He trailed off with a repulsive chuckle. "You're cute."

Her lips curled into a snarl.

"I'm gonna enjoy this."

Her stomach twisted. He said nothing more, only smirked and turned away. Sally squeezed her eyes shut tight, not sure if she should hope for the gang to hurry up or stay far away.

Far away from Sally's prison cell, a blanket-tangled heap was snoring softly in a bed in the Christmas Town Motel. A tiny ghost dog was curled up next to the lump with its tail curled around its nose, making snoring sounds in its sleep. All the shutters were closed, and not a single beam of light pierced the darkness of the room. Nobody would have guessed that it was eight o'clock in the morning if they had stumbled upon the room by accident. It appeared to be midnight, and aside from the snoring, there were no other sounds pervading the silence.

Quite suddenly, a loud ruckus blared outside. The blanket-covered lump groaned and turned over in bed. "Not now...not at six o'clock in the morning..." Jack Skellington moaned. Zero gave a snort of contempt and buried into his master's armpit, whining in agreement. Jack pulled the covers over his head and shut his sockets in a vain attempt to return to sleep. Just as he began to drift off to dreamland, a loud scream echoed in the morning air. It startled Jack enough to cause the gentlemanly skeleton to fall out of bed and crack his skull on the floor.

"Owww..." Jack whimpered, massaging the place where he'd conked his skull. Zero floated next to him and barked, checking to make sure that his master was okay. Jack smiled through the long bony fingers rubbing his skull and got to his feet. After making sure that he hadn't been concussed, Jack ambled to the window and opened the blinds. Yawning loudly, he squinted through the light flooding his sockets to the streets below.

Jack's sockets widened in shock as he realized what was happening. A gang of gun-toting outlaws was riding through the town, screaming at the top of their lungs and shooting up townsfolk left and right. Tied to the backs of their saddles were the sheriff and some of his men. The Sheriff of Christmas Town was as pale as new-fallen snow, but the gag around his mouth limited his ability to scream for help.

Still, it was as obvious as the morning daylight that he desperately wanted out. His men, who were looking just as scared, glared at every gang member that came into their view. Their anger merely caused the gang to break out into raucous hoots of laughter and shoot even more people.

For a moment, Jack wondered if he was still dreaming. Cautiously, he pinched his funny bone to make sure he was awake. Wincing from the pain, Jack flopped back onto his bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to process what was going on. He was sure that Sally had long left Christmas Town behind, as she had no obvious reason to stay. HE was staying because he needed to take a train home before his darling Catherine got too worried about him, not to mention the fact that he was almost out of money. He'd wind up stranded in the desert without any cash if he wasn't careful.

Zero's nudge at his elbow snapped Jack out of his reverie. "Hmmm...I wonder why the gang is here if Sally's gone," Jack muttered. Rising from the bed, the charismatic undead skeleton began to pace the floor, deep in thought. He looked absolutely ridiculous with such a serious expression on his face while dressed in his pajamas and nightcap, but luckily no one was there to see him. All that was important right now was figuring out a reason for the hullabaloo that had woken him from his sleep so early in the morning (although not quite as early as he imagined it was).

Was the gang returning to enact revenge on the citizens of Christmas Town? Had Sally been kidnapped or thrown into jail? Or was there a completely different reason for raiding the town?

It just didn't make sense. Jack sighed and flopped back onto his bed. He might as well return to sleep until the matter was sorted out. The safest place for him was the hotel room, anyway. Closing his eyes, Jack wrapped an arm around Zero and slowly but surely drifted off again.

However, it wasn't long before another scream woke him up. And this time, he knew that there was something seriously wrong in Christmas Town. Something terrible enough to make an early-morning train ride seem like the quickest route to safety. He had to escape before things turned deadly-and fast.

It killed him inside to be unable to help the people of this good town. But going up against a whole gang by himself wouldn't just be silly, it would be suicide.

'I'll find someone who CAN help before I board that train...'

He still felt almost helplessly inadequate; who knew how many innocent citizens would die before help would come?

Zero whined, and Jack forced himself to get moving. He packed his few things and crept downstairs. Taking a deep breath, the dapper skeleton slid out the back door.

His jaw fell open.

Sally's gang was exchanging fire with a pack of skeletons. The newcomers were dressed in vibrant neon colors and armed to the teeth. Their eyes glowed red. They wore malicious smiles.

A chubby corpse child shrieked as he was yanked off his father's horse and thrown to the ground. A small mummy who turned back to help him was partially unraveled and knocked viciously about the head.

A tiny green creature with enormous wings shrieked as one of the skeletons bent one of his wings until it gave with an audible snap.

A clown with fangs was swiftly relieved of his removable face and half-drowned with his own seltzer bottle.

The still-bound Christmas Town citizens that had been rescued by several neon-colored bats looked on in horror.

Jack was similarly frozen until a rough hand yanked him back behind the hotel. He looked up into the eyes of the tree that had helped him tend Sally a little while ago. Sutures and a jet-black stallion waited just behind him.

"Come with me if you want to live," the tree rasped.

Jack and Zero exchanged glances and hastened to obey.

"Miss Eve, your limp's getting worse."

Eve kept her voice even. Wasn't easy. "I'm fine, sugar."

The Sheriff wrung his smallish hands. "Maybe you should see Doc Jewel..."

The barkeep adamantly shook her head. "No can do. Between that little girl and the gang members that keep gettin' brought in, Jewel's stretched thinner than skin on pudding. Matter of fact, I was just heading over to give her a hand."

"I'll come lend one too," the Sheriff offered.

She regarded him, surprised. He was the most squeamish feller this side of Nightmare County; someone who started gagging if one of the bar's many patrons had one too many and puked on the floor. "Fine."

"But you should really take it easy on that leg of yours." the pudgy law enforcer worried.

"Alright. Hold still."

"Wha-?"

Eve braced herself, got a good grip on his head, and hoisted herself onto his shoulder. The sassy bird creature adjusted her legs and shifted until she was comfortable. "Alright. Lead on, Macduff."

Not even bullet damage could stop the Sheriff's happy face from clicking into place.

* * *

Eve smirked as she watched the Sheriff come within two inches of puking as he helped bandage the little girl's broken leg. Honestly, it wasn't TOO bad of a break, but the Sheriff seemed to think it was the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen. He kept squirming in the most wormlike way as he wrapped it up and eventually placed it on a pillow, along with a bag of ice to keep the swelling down.

"Think you've had enough already?" Eve squawked over her shoulder to the Sheriff as she helped Doc Jewel stitch up a wound on a ghoul's stomach. It was oozing with pus and filled with dried purplish blood. The mere sight of it would have been enough to make a grown man lose his breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at once. Luckily, Eve had acquired a tough stomach from all the sick bar patrons she'd had to assist while working at the Deadly Nightshade.

The Sheriff, on the other hand, was a completely different story. Every time he looked at any injury that could be considered mildly disturbing, he'd groan and wriggle and have to cover his eyes before he vomited. Several times, Eve had had to give him a good slap in the face to keep the poor guy from passing out. She had no idea that the Sheriff was so scared of blood and pus, since she'd seen him break up gunfights before where the contenders had sustained wounds even bloodier than the injuries on display here.

Perhaps it was the sight of moaning patients whom he was supposed to protect that unnerved him, or perhaps he hadn't had the opportunity to see bloody wounds up close before. Either way, even though Eve felt sorry for the Sheriff, she couldn't deny that she'd had to cover her beak several times today to keep from laughing out loud. Seeing the Sheriff so squirmy over cuts and bumps was hysterical enough to tickle her funny bone billions of times over.

"Yes," the Sheriff moaned. He stumbled over to the door and grabbed the doorknob for dear life, as if he'd drop dead without its support. Unfortunately, the doorknob slipped out of his hands and the door opened with a bang, causing the poor Sheriff to fall flat on his face.

"Oww!" he yelped as he rolled over and rubbed his bruised face. Eve could have sworn that Doc Jewel rolled her eyes as she helped the pudgy two-faced man to his feet. The Sheriff mumbled something like an apology before brushing off his clothes and ambling out the door. A look of relief was plasted across his face, as though he was glad to get out of the sickroom as soon as possible.

Eve wasn't going to let him get away with that so easily. "Oh, no you don't!" she squawked as she gripped onto his elbow with a vengeance. Immediately, the Sheriff turned around and switched to his distressed face with some difficulty. Eve rolled her eyes and explained, "Look, I ain't gonna let you outta here without a good excuse for it. These citizens need your help, and let's face it-some of 'em are gonna die if they're not given attention immediately."

"B-but-" the Sheriff stammered, wringing his hands in despair.

Eve flicked a finger to his mouth and shushed him. "No buts, mister! Unless you have a better reason for ridin' off into the sunset scot-free, you're gonna have to stay here and take care of these poor sick guys. And if you try to make a run for the door again, then I will personally tie you down in a chair and force you to shovel gruel into a sick demon's mouth if I have to," she hissed.

The Sheriff thought for a few moments before he answered her. "W-well, I just wanted to check on Shifty-Eyed Sal to make sure that Oogie Boogie is treating her all right and making sure she can't escape," he stammered.

"Well, if that's the case and you're NOT trying to get out of takin' care of these wounded folks, then I s'pose that's all right," Eve agreed reluctantly. The Sheriff brightened up immediately and tipped his hat respectfully to her before moseying out the door. Eve sighed and returned to mopping a feverish patient's forehead with a wet washcloth while Jewel bandaged the patient's hand. She really did think the Sheriff was a perfectly charming guy, but she wished that he didn't get squeamish so easily.

Then again, if he'd stayed and helped her take care of Jewel's patients, there was the distinct possibility that he'd have gotten sick and become one of them himself.

"Quite a catch," Jewel remarked, somehow managing to keep a straight face.

Even the patient snorted softly. Eve fought back a smile. She opened her beak to issue a witty reply but abruptly growled, "Don't you even think about it, kid."

"Okay, okay! Sheesh." Lock grumbled. He backed away from the chest of drawers, looking sullen.

Barrel peered up at him, disappointed. "So we can't play with Shifty-Eyed Sal's hands?"

Lock shook his head.

"But she's not even USING them!" Barrel groaned.

"Grown-ups are no fun." grumbled Lock, still eyeing the locked drawer with an unhealthy interest.

"Oh, and what would you morons do with her hands?" Shock muttered, from the cot that she was sharing with a creature who had a broken wing, "Pick your noses?"

Lock stuck out his tongue at her. "Actually, we were gonna stick 'em in an anthill."

Shock sighed. "That DOES sound fun," she admitted.

The creature curled up at the foot of the bed snarled. Whoops. Shock kept forgetting that a lot of her new neighbors were part of Shifty-Eyed Sal's gang.

"If you two aren't gonna help out in here, you need to get moving," Doc Jewel told Lock and Barrel.

They were gone the next time she turned around.

"Now, Mr. Boogie Oogie, are you treating that fine young lady decently?" the Sheriff drawled as he waddled into Sally's cell.

"THAT'S MR. OOGIE BOOGIE TO YOU, YOU DRUNK L'IL SHERIFF!" roared Oogie Boogie, slapping the Sheriff across the face. The Sheriff winced and attempted to turn to his distressed face, but the damage Sally's bullet had done to his face made that well nigh impossible.

"Oh, fiddlesticks!" the Sheriff grunted, trying everything in the book to get his face to turn to the proper expression. Nothing worked. The result of all the Sheriff's struggling was merely an excuse for Oogie Boogie to guffaw in a most excruciating manner. Even though Sally felt like a mouse stuck in a trap, she still struggled to repress a grin upon seeing how much trouble her bullet had caused the Sheriff.

Eventually, the Sheriff gave up on switching faces. He shrugged nonchalantly and whirled around to face Oogie Boogie, who was leering over him with cruel amusement shimmering in his socket-esque eyes. "So...I assume you haven't been spoiling Sally with Deadly Nightshade Ale and chocolate-stuffed cakes, have you?" he interrogated.

Chocolate-stuffed cakes?! Sally gritted her teeth in contempt. She had never eaten such fine, overrated delicacies in her life. In fact, she was much more used to the taste of hard, moldy bread than she was to the taste of a freshly-baked muffin. She hadn't even been exposed to decent food while she'd lived with Finklestein-he'd had too many stomach problems to count and so the only foods he'd stocked in his pantries were soup, oatmeal, and very soft bread. She could barely even stomach quality wine because of the soft foods she'd eaten with him. Even then, surely he hadn't deserved to-

'Shut UP!' Sally screamed in her head for the thirtieth time. She'd been thinking about Finklestein far too often ever since the day that she'd met Jack in the Deadly Nightshade. It was impeding her ability to think on the fly-a vital survival tactic that she relied on every minute of her life. If she spent too much time regretting her past, she'd never be able to think of a plan to escape in the present. And she wouldn't be able to do that until she discovered a way to escape the prison cell without her arms or legs.

"Grow up, boys." she growled.

Oogie chuckled. "Prickly as a cactus, ain't she? How charmin'."

Sally roasted the Sheriff with a slow-burning stare that asked him why on this green earth he had seen fit to make that sack of bugs her cellmate. She could almost swear that the pudgy man shot her a sympathetic glance. Obviously there was no love lost between the Sheriff and the boogeyman.

"If we can be serious here for a minute," the law enforcer interjected, "I'm here on official business."

"Sure thing, Sheriff," Oogie replied, mockery dripping from his snake tongue.

Sally gave the Sheriff her attention without appearing too interested.

He addressed Sally first. "Miss Sally, you'll have your trial the day after tomorrow. While I can't see the future, I can tell you that the verdict's not likely to be in your favor."

Well, there was a surprise. If she was here long enough to be put on trial, she was as good as dead. There wasn't a doubt in the patchwork doll's mind. She stared back evenly, teeth scraping the inside of her lip.

The Sheriff turned- with some difficulty- to Oogie. "Mister Oogie Boogie..." He spoke with a hint of contempt.

The bag of bugs smirked. "Hmm?"

"I'm not quite sure what to do with you."

"Lemme give you some help. I held up my end of the bargain; time for you to hold up yours."

There was a tint of fear in the Sheriff's voice when he spoke again. "You're still in a bit of hot water..."

The boogeyman snorted. "For what? Getting friendly with that sour old barkeep?"

"Leave Miss Eve out of this!"

Oogie raised his burlap paws in surrender, smirking.

The Sheriff gathered himself once more and continued. "Aside from disrespecting several fine upright women, you've infested the hotel and the bar with bugs and made half of us broke."

As the two argued, Sally closed her wide eyes and concentrated on shutting out the world until she no longer noticed the ongoing conversation. It was a talent of hers that she had dern near perfected. The outlaw redhead hoped that her gang was going to be okay. She hoped that the Hanging Tree wasn't lying dying somewhere. And, despite herself, she hoped that that idjit skeleton was on the train home to his Catherine.

Jack's entire frame rattled as Sutures trotted down the rise overlooking Halloween Town.

The Hanging Tree gritted his barky teeth. "For the last time, fancy pants, hug her with yer legs!"

"Oh. Okay."

The dapper skeleton squeezed his legs around Sutures's sides, being careful not to hurt her in the process. The rattling diminished significantly, and a bit of tension eased out of the tree. Sutures followed the tree's black stallion, not needing Jack to direct her- something that Jack was grateful for. The tree was silent in front of him, easing across the town line like he was afraid it was going to coil up and start delivering bites.

Sutures picked up on his unease and trod just as quietly. Jack patted her neck and felt how tense she was. Nerves prickled through his ribcage. Something was very wrong.

Every shop and home that they passed had its windows shut up and its doors barred. There were no dogs or scruffy cats snoozing on any of the weather-beaten porches. The Deadly Nightshade's windows were lit but the place was silent. There wasn't a drunken catcall or off-key piano accompaniment to be heard.

Steel winked in the moonlight as the Hanging Tree reached back and handed Jack a gun. "Take this."

Jack stared at the pistol in his skeletal hands, feeling a queasiness that had nothing to do with the extended riding they'd been doing. "I..."

Red eyes glared out of the growing darkness before he could reply. Zero barked as ferociously as a specter his size could and made his nose flare extra bright.

A nightmarish neon bat bared its teeth and screeched an alarm. The tree swore and shot it out of the sky, but it was too late. Neon skeletons slid out of the darkness on all sides, brandishing big guns and bigger snarls.

The black stallion snorted and then screamed as the Hanging Tree and the growing horde exchanged gunfire. Smoke filled the air like a poison, stinging Jack's sockets and choking him. Sutures wheezed and staggered, kicking out at one adversary and jerking to one side to avoid two more.

At a total loss as to what to do, Jack smacked the nearest technicolor skull with the butt of his borrowed pistol. He grimaced at the sickeningly solid thunk of metal on bone and tried his best to knock down a few of the skeletons that were overwhelming the tree.

Bone-dry, enormous hands seized his spinal cord from behind. A yelp belatedly escaped him as he was yanked from the saddle.

The last thing he was aware of was Sutures's eyes rolling to watch him before his skull smashed into the dusty ground.

Doc Jewel pressed one tiny hand to the knot that throbbed just above her temple. It hurt like the dickens, but at least it had stopped bleeding. Eve curled her wings more snugly around the elderly doctor as she felt Jewel's shivering start up again. Sitting right up against the wall like this made her legs feel like one big scorpion bite, but the black muzzle trained on her head said that it would be prudent to stay put.

When Oogie's men-or rather, skeletons-had first barged in, Jewel had protested that a lot of the people laid out on the overcrowded cots still needed attention. That had earned her the knock on the head. The snarl that Eve had directed towards the attacker had been rewarded with a shot to the leg. Her GOOD leg. From there, the skeletons had taken over the infirmary without opposition.

Hollering from outside and occasional shots had told the shellshocked patients that similar upheaval was taking place in other parts of town. No one could tell if the shots were warning shots or something worse, and their captors weren't telling.

Only the trio was allowed to leave. Lock had slipped out once it had gotten fairly quiet outside, and Barrel had followed after with Shock riding piggyback.

The Sheriff had never come back.

Eve swallowed hard and tried to tamp down her rising terror, but her thoughts always circled back to the same conclusion.

Halloween Town was in a genuine pickle, and its leader might be...

The lump in her throat grew thorns. Water sprang to her eyes when she tried to swallow it again.

Jewel laid a bony hand on her collarbone, and she turned her beak into the doctor's cheek.

Sally lay perfectly still as the jail door creaked open again. The bloodied Sheriff beside her didn't stir. She couldn't tell if he was dead or just hurt. After the beating that Oogie had dealt him, he could have been either. The cell door squealed and stopped in the dent that had been smashed into the Sheriff's happy face. Neon bones flickered through the darkness as another luckless feller flew through the air.

"SONOFA-!"

Sally stiffened. It couldn't be.

A stream of expletives followed.

It was!

The Hanging Tree growled. He swore again when a second feller thumped against his already-bruised side. "Dagnabbit!"

"Hey," she breathed, her tongue reluctant to move after being still for so long.

The swearing trailed off. "Sal?"

With an effort, she forced her loosened neck to move and flopped her head into the crook of his arm. "You alright?" It was the closest that she would come to telling him that she was glad that he was alive.

"Yeah." It was his way of telling her that he was just as glad to find her safe and relatively intact.

"Physically or mentally?"

Sally's entire body responded to the second voice. The fever heat flooded her neck and tummy, tingled up every single one of her stitches, and did its darndest to burn holes right through her cheeks and forehead. She was torn between gritting her tiny straight teeth and laughing in relief like an idiot.

Jack was there.

He was okay.

Jack was there.

"You're probably gonna live," she told him.

As soon as Sally saw the condition that Jack was in, her relief dissolved into concern. Although Jack was still standing and cheerfully undead, his jaw had been dislocated and he wore a bandage wrapped around it in order to keep it in place. Part of his forehead appeared to have been smashed in, and one of his sockets was as black as an unlucky cat.

Sally didn't need to look any further to realize that Jack had been in a shootout. She'd seen enough injured gang members in her life to know when someone had been trampled underfoot in the crossfire.

"You're lookin' a little worse for wear, sugar," Sally quipped while the Hanging Tree got to work on picking the lock on her cell.

"Well, if it hadn't been for your friend here, I'd probably be double-dead by now," Jack replied with a painful grin. He winced and took a moment to readjust his jaw before he continued. "Your friend told me to follow him if I wanted to live-errr, I guess remain single-dead-and I rode after him on your fine mare until we reached Halloween Town. But by then, the skeletons had invaded this town as well and we had to defend ourselves. One of those neon fellows out there grabbed me by the spinal cord and smashed me into the ground. I would've been dead for sure if this tree buddy of yours hadn't shot the skeleton point-blank. By the time I came to, the feller was already dead on the ground. I somehow managed to get up and find my way to the town jail, but it wasn't easy..."

"Oh, it's all right. You needn't have come back for me," Sally drawled in a curiously coy voice. Secretly, she was glad that Jack and the Hanging Tree had made an attempt to rescue her, but of course she wasn't going to act all soft in front of her fellow gang member. "Now, if you could help me get up and make a run for it to Sutures...?" She waved her arm to indicate that they should help her up and carry her to her beloved mare. She would have run to her herself, but without feet or a head, it was difficult to do anything at the moment.

"Why, of course. Just as soon as Mr. Tree gets this jail cell open," Jack reassured her.

"It's HANGING TREE, not MR. TREE!" growled the Hanging Tree.

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry, my dear fellow, I didn't mean to upset you," Jack apologized. The Hanging Tree merely grunted as he swung open the cell and managed to roughly reattach Sally's head to her body. Before Sally could utter a word of thanks, Jack swung her up on his shoulders and adjusted her to make sure she was comfortable. "Ready, Sally?" he asked.

Gulping down her secret glee, Sally nodded, "Of course, Jack." As soon as the last word exited her mouth, Jack was off and running like a bullet flying from a pistol.

Before he got to the door, however, a low groan stopped him in his tracks. "What the-?" Sally uttered in consternation. The only answer she got from Jack was a trembling finger pointing back towards the jail cell. Turning her head, Sally glanced back and choked back a scream as the Mayor's bloodied hand rose up, trembling, from his red-stained body.

"Help me," he moaned. Those were the only two words he managed to get out before his hand went limp and fell back to rest on his chest while the pool of blood that surrounded him grew bigger and rounder like an alien moon.

Once he'd gotten past his initial shock, Jack carefully attempted to hand Sally to the Hanging Tree.

The patchwork outlaw blew out a silent sigh. Nothing was ever simple, was it? "Let me take a look at him."

Surprised and grateful, Jack nodded his skull and hurried to the Sheriff's side. He knelt down without pausing to select a clean patch of the floor.

The city slicker skeleton set Sally down in his lap. Hoping that the tree couldn't hear her artificial heart slapping against her ribcage like an agitated jackrabbit, Sally leaned down and inspected the damage. The coppery stench of blood was overwhelming at this proximity. She noticed Jack doing his best to control his gag reflex.

"There's not much we can do," she declared after a minute, trying not to notice the panic that entered the Sheriff's countenance.

"There must be something!" Jack sounded both pleading and determined.

"'Course there is, sweetheart. I just meant that we don't have much to work with."

"Oh." Jack sighed in relief. "Phew." He reached over and squeezed the Sheriff's trembling hands. "You're going to be alright, sir- we'll help you."

The Hanging Tree scowled as he peered out of the jail's one window. "How do you plan to do that? The town's crawling with those colorful scraps of crud."

"I'll find a way." Jack replied.

Sally bit back the urge to tell him he was going to get himself killed. After the way she'd treated him, and after all the people she'd shot, she didn't have the right to get all protective over him. "Look for Doc Jewel," she told him, quietly. "She's your best bet. If you can't get her back here, see if you can find my hands."

He kissed her cheek. "Thank you."

She drew away. "I'm not promising any miracles, sugar. I'll do what I can."

Jack turned to the tree. "And you?"

The swarthy outlaw frowned. "I'm giving you fifteen minutes. After that, we're taking off with the horses."

Sally bit her lip but didn't contradict her best friend. Jack nodded somberly. Ever so gently, he set Sally down. He nodded again to each outlaw. His sockets lingered on the bluish redhead and then tore away. He stepped out alone without looking back, holding his borrowed pistol like it was soggy and smelled unpleasant. Sally's chest tightened to the point where she was unable to breathe deeply enough to fully satisfy her lungs.

The tree sighed. "This is a waste of fifteen minutes."

The Sheriff whimpered in protest. Remembering her surroundings with a little start, Sally instinctively did her best to staunch the portly patient's bleeding. "It was your idea."

"What would you want me to do, Sal- go along and hold his hand?"

She bared her teeth. "Don't be smart."

"You don't owe that skeleton nothing."

Sally thought of how Jack had pulled her from the river and shielded her body with his not once but twice in the middle of a shootout. "I'm not about to forget my gang. Fifteen minutes and we're out of here."

"Fourteen," the tree muttered.

The Sheriff whimpered.

* * *

Jack scurried into the streets, reluctantly clutching his pistol as he scanned the area for Doc Jewel's practice. All he could see was a sea of red neon skeletons and shrieking neon bats. He took a tentative step forward and was pummeled by gunfire almost immediately.

"Whoops, fellas, what'd I do wrong? I'm ever so sorry," Jack giggled nervously. The skeletons and bats did not seem to be so amused. They continued to shoot, prompting Jack to try his darndest to avoid the shots.

He dodged and skirted the bullets as gracefully as a spider, but agile as he was, he couldn't avoid the cloud of bullets completely. One of them left a smoking hole in the remains of his stetson. Another clipped his leg and lodged itself a mere two inches from his heel. And a third one caught him in the socket and temporarily rendered him blind.

Staggering through the smoke and coughing like a patient with a lung infection, Jack managed to stumble through the ranks and step onto the welcome mat of Jewel's infirmary. Before he could knock on the door, a fourth shot hit him in the back and knocked him to the ground. Gasping for air, Jack managed to mutter, "Spider legs and bat's wing brew," before the coughing began.

A few moments later, Jewel opened the door and hit the choking skeleton in the ankle. Surprised to see Jack's lanky form on her porch, she stepped back and took in the startling sight. The gentlemanly bone-man was sprawled like a downed daddy long-legs on the welcome mat, hacking up dust every two seconds. He had a bullet lodged in his right socket and a singed hole glared out from the side of his trampled hat. As if all of THAT wasn't bad enough, a whole gang of neonic baddies were marching their way towards the injured skeleton, eyes glowing with unparalleled hatred.

Before Jewel had a chance to speak, Jack opened his mouth and gave a plaintive cough. "M-Miss Jewel, I n-need your help. T-the sheriff got shot by Oogie Boogie, and he's b-bleeding to death in the town prison w-with Sally..." he stuttered.

Jewel's eyes widened with shock. "The Sheriff's been shot? Show me where he is! Now!" she demanded. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure her patients didn't need her help, but they were all fast asleep. Satisfied that she wasn't needed at the moment, she followed the skinny skeleton as he limped his way through the town and made a mental note to remove the bullet from his socket when she was finished treating the Sheriff.

As Jack trotted towards the town prison, a red skeleton popped up out of the blue and aimed his shotgun at Jack. Jewel shrieked in warning and grabbed Jack's shoulder, but she was two seconds too late. The shot rang out across the town as the little bullet bit Jack's chest like an irritated cur.

The lanky bone-man's own gun slipped from his brittle fingers and hit the ground with a resounding thud as Jack collapsed. Jewel fell over shrieking, her frilly skirts billowing in the air like stormclouds, as she fell after him. After she recovered, she struggled to her feet and scooped up Jack in her arms, but the red skeleton who had fired was leaning over them maliciously.

"You're comin' with me," he snarled, roughly grabbing Jewel's arm and dragging her along with him.

"Oh, no we ain't," Jewel retorted. She grabbed the fallen pistol from the ground and wacked the skeleton over the head with it. He fell down like a brick as Jewel hitched up her skirts and made a run for it. She wasn't sure if she would make it to the town prison without being pierced through with bullet holes, but she sure as shootin' was gonna do her darndest to try.

* * *

The Hanging Tree stared out the window. "Incredible."

"Hm?" Sally didn't look up from the fading Sheriff.

"That skeletal sap actually got Jewel."

Sally's head snapped up.

"Actually, it's more like the other way around- she's lugging him." He stood, lurching slightly, and drew his gun as he jogged out of the cell.

Sally wanted to scream with frustration. That idiot bone man and that fragile little doctor needed help, and she had to sit here like a lump of quilting squares and wait for her friend to bail them out. There was nothing that she wouldn't have given to be intact and properly stitched at that moment. She didn't realize that she'd stopped breathing until her head started to swim.

The tree burst in, Jewel hanging from one branch and Jack curled up in the fork where Sally usually sat. He handed Jewel down and set her on the floor next to the Sheriff. Her eyes met Sally's. Murderer and widow locked gazes for an eternal three seconds. Then Jewel was all business, cooing soothingly as she tended the terrified Sheriff.

The Hanging Tree set Jack down. The lanky bone man slumped to the floor without a sound. Sally scooted close to him and assessed his hurts.

'You dern fool...why do you keep laying your neck on the line for people you don't even know?'

"Hold still, Sal- let me stitch you up properly."

She whirled on her best friend. "Not! Now!"

The patchwork redhead could feel the tree's eyes asking questions, but she refused to turn around again. She did what she could for Jack, occasionally being forced to enlist Jewel's help.

'If only I had my hands!'

Neon skeletons had their cell surrounded. She couldn't bring herself to care. How could this fix get any worse?

Jack groaned softly and curled up in a bony ball. His skull came to rest in her soft fabric lap. Sally's wrist stump tentatively brushed his jaw bone. He turned his face so that it pressed against her arm. He seemed to want to be touched as much as she wanted to touch him. Giving in to the almost physical pull, Sally cradled his skull and shoulders and stroked his brow as best she could.

"You're an idjit, you know that?"

Only a soft sigh in response.

"And you probably saved that fat Sheriff's life."

He hummed groggily and pressed closer to her. Sally encircled him in her arms. "You idjit."

yellow-and-black bat stared maliciously down at the motley crew. Sally stared back, making a silent vow to kill anyone else who attempted to set foot in here. As Jack drifted into unconsciousness, his hand floated up and clasped her wrist like it was the corner of a security blanket.

She could have jerked her hand away and told him that he should have brought his teddy bear.

She could have punched him right in the middle of his injured jaw.

So why did she curl closer around him and rest her chin on his skull?

He was out like a light before she could decide.

Some time later, Jewel patted the Sheriff's conical head. "I've done all I ken do- it's up to him now."  
The elderly doctor didn't look so good- she was obviously run down, and running here hadn't done her any favors. "I'm gonna catch a few winks."

The Hanging Tree nodded. "That's fine."

"I need to be getting back soon, though- Miss Eve isn't doing so good, and those colorful thugs didn't want me to leave the porch steps."

"Get some rest," the tree asserted.

She was unconscious almost as soon as her head touched the wall.

The Hanging Tree and Sally kept watch.

Sally's eyes popped open as an all-too-familiar voice growled, "Well, well, well- what have we here?"

Silently, she cursed herself for nodding off.

The Hanging Tree snarled, "Back off."

Oogie Boogie smirked, leaning lazily on the opposite wall. "You're not one to be giving orders, you oversized matchstick."

Jewel sat up slowly, resting one hand on the nasty knot on her head. "What do you want?"

"I was told that you folks had been causing some trouble."

"We were trying to help the Sheriff."

"Wrong answer!" She winced at his bellow, out of protest for her headache and not out of fear. "I'M the Sheriff around here, and I say you've been causing trouble!"

As he waddled into the cell, intent on the elderly doctor, Sally snagged his ankle.

He whirled on her and seized a handful of her long hair in his nasty paw. The bluish rag doll's teeth clicked together as he slammed her head against the wall hard enough to send colored stars spraying across the world.

A low voice rose from her lap. "Take your paws off of her."

Oogie barked a laugh, twisting Sally's hair brutally around his paw. "Or what?"

Jack sat up, still a little unsteady. "I'm not going to ask again. Let the lady go."


End file.
